Countdown To 3G And Wimax Begins; 3G, Wimax Policy Overview

At last! Maybe we needed something as dramatic as an eclipse, but dear readers, its finally here. The guidelines for the auction of allotment of spectrum for 3G services and WiMax were released on August 1. Service roll-outs are expected to occur mid-2009. The government is auctioning 5 licenses over 60 Mhz of spectrum by the end of the year, and may offer a further 5 licenses at a future date. Relevant highlights gleaned from the documents below:

For 3G
— Spectrum in 2.1 GHz band will be allocated for auction. Successful bidders shall be granted spectrum allotment for 20 years.
— Any person holding a UAS license and/or fulfils eligibility criteria Universal Access Service License (UASL) and has previous experience of running 3G services can bid for spectrum
— Upto 10 players in the 3G space, including foreign players
— Operators are exempt from paying an annual fee in the first year of operations
— Operators to pay an annual spectrum charge of 1% of Adjusted Gross Revenue after one year
— A reserve price will be set for each service area. See price to the right:image
— Roll out obligations include 90% of metro area’s within 5 years from date of spectrum allocation. For category A,B and C circles, 50% of the cities in the service area out of which 15% of the DHQ’s should be rural SDCA’s.
— Spectrum to be auctioned in blocks of 2×5 MHz in 2.1 GHz band. The number of blocks up for grabs will be announced in advance before the auction.
— One block shall be allocated to MTNL in Mumbai/Delhi and BSNL in other service areas at a price equal to the highest bid in the respective service area

Policy document here. Follow updates on our 3G Channel.

Wimax highlights after the jump

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