Status Quo On Spectrum Allocation; Operators Asked To Share Infrastructure

Business Standard: The issue of radio frequency spectrum for mobile phone services still seems to be unresolved. A specially empowered committee of the government on spectrum has maintained a status quo on the spectrum allotment criteria, which has helped neither GSM nor the CDMA lobbies in India.
Both the camps have been at loggerheads on the spectrum allocation issue. Currently, GSM operators are given twice the amount of spectrum as compared to CDMA players for an equal number of subscribers. But GSM operators have been demanding that the current allotment ratio be changed to 5:1 on the ground that CDMA was five times more spectrum-efficient, while CDMA operators have been fighting for equal allotment for both technology platforms.
Now the decision is that the status quo will be maintained as far as the spectrum allocation is concerned. The report also said both GSM and CDMA operators must be awarded additional spectrum based on the number of subscribers in a particular circle. While CDMA players currently enjoy this facility, GSM operators do not have the benefit of this differentiation.
In another key decision, the government has asked the telecom operators in major cities to share infrastructure to address the heavy congestion in telecom networks.

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