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Spectrum auctions a success, says Trai Chairman RS Sharma
Thegovernment is set to get Rs 65,789.12 crore, less then what was
expected, even as it sold more airwaves than in the previous four
auctions combined.
are giving a platform to everyone in the consultation paper and will
come out with our findings once the consultation completes.
DELHI: The chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India termed
the recent spectrum auctions a success, given that companies had bought
as much airwaves as they needed. RS Sharma
said the regulator would revisit the price of the 700 Mhz band if the
Department of Telecom decides to resell the band that found no takers in
the sale that concluded last week.
On the issue of failed calls between the networks of newcomer Reliance Jio
Infocomm and the big incumbents in the sector, he said there was an
improvement but the number was still far higher than what the rules
mandated, and that the regulator was set to take action against erring
operators who had not provided adequate points of interconnection
(PoIs).
“They (auctions) were very successful. Telcos have bought
whatever they needed to buy,” Sharma told ET. Mobile phone companies
now can’t use spectrum scarcity as an excuse for poor quality of
services, he said. “That excuse is gone. A lot of spectrum was sold,
apart from that in the 700 Mhz band.” Trai has noted the industry views that the reserve price of airwaves in the 700 Mhz band was “very expensive”, he said.
“We
had priced it based on various factors at that point in time. And if
they (DoT) want to auction it again, they will send a reference back to
us, and we will look into the pricing again based on the factors
prevalent at that point in time,” he said, while pointing out that the
price for the band in some circles was below that set for 900 Mhz.
Sharma
declined to comment when asked if he felt telcos had together decided
to stay away from bidding for the band. The spectrum auctions closed on
October 6. The government is set to get Rs65,789.12 crore, less then
what was expected, even as it sold more airwaves than in the previous
four auctions combined.
All seven mobile phone operators in the
fray for over 2300 MHz of airwaves gave the expensive 700 MHz band —
considered the best for 4G services — a miss, blaming the high starting
price, and called on the government to reduce the rates and put it up
for sale again. The reserve price for a unit of pan-India spectrum in
the 700 MHz band was Rs11,475 crore. Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and HSBC expect the failure to sell 700 MHz to nudge the regulator to lower prices, with HSBC predicting a15-20% cut.
PoIs
and free offers Trai is examining complaints that Reliance Jio Infocomm
violated rules by offering free voice calls for life, Sharma said.
India’s largest telcos — Bharti Airtel,
Vodafone India and Idea Cellular — that made the complaint had also
sought a clarification from the regulator on whether Jio’s free voice
and data offer from September 5 till the end of the year goes against
rules that set a 90-day limit for promotional plans. “We had sought
responses from Reliance Jio and their responses have also come. We are
examining whether there is any truth in their complaints,” Sharma said.
On
the call failures on Jio’s network, Sharma said Trai is set to take
action against telcos which didn’t meet the quality of service standards
that mandate call failures of less than 0.5% of all calls. “Some 50%
(calls failed) vs 0.5% ... That’s hardly an improvement. We will take
action as per law against all those who have failed to meet quality of
service parameters,” Sharma said, adding that Trai had received
responses to the showcause notices sent to errant telcos.
ET reported that the call failure incidents between Jio and Airtel’s
networks have improved to 56% a day from nearly 73% on September 23.
Between Jio and Idea, the rate has reduced to 62% from more than 75%,
and Vodafone India to 75% from 83.5% earlier.
Sharma had earlier said that the high rate of call failure could only be due to inadequate PoIs between the networks.
According
to sources, telcos, in their response, blamed the free offer from Jio
for call failures, saying that it led to huge inflow of traffic clogging
the network. They also said that the 14 paise a minute call termination
charge that they get from Jio wasn’t enough
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