Telecom Minister A Raja today said his ministry is in talks with the Defence Ministry for releasing spectrum from the armed forces for civilian communication use.
"The talks are being held with the defence ministry for release of spectrum. The National Security Advisor is on the job. Probably by next month, we are going to meet," he said on the sidelines of a telecom summit here.
However, a senior DoT official said that the defence ministry too does not have much spectrum that it can spare.
The 1800 and 900 MHz band (the most used spectrum band in mobile telephony) have been fully exhausted. "We have also given some spectrum on trial to new operators in south India," the official said.
"It is very difficult to get any spectrum for Delhi or Mumbai, as these heavily populated metros have utilised all the available spectrum," he said.
DoT expects defence to release at least 25-30 MHz of spectrum for 3G services. The original demand from DoT to defence was for 45 MHz, which has now been scaled down to 25-30 MHz.