Spectrup Spat: Former TRAI Head And Temasek Criticize New Allocation Norms

Pradip Baijal, former head of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, in an article in the Business Standard, has criticized the TRAI for not being very transparent, and deviating from procedure while recommending admendments to spectrum allocation norms. He says that different interest groups are complicating matters around spectrum allocation, and a move to Next Generation Networks (NGN) will help reduce the requirement of spectrum that telcos are currently fighting over. With NGN, one can also allow more operators to offer services. He also speaks out against auctioning spectrum – past experiments have “ended up disastrously”. Some very interesting points, here.

Meanwhile, Singapore’s investment arm Temasek has written to the Indian Prime Minister, asserting that the current recommendations “risk making private operators sub-scale, when they have a real window of opportunity to be global champions.” Temasek is a major investor in Singtel, which has about 30 percent stake in Bharti Airtel.

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