Within days of Delhi High Court giving clean chit to the government, the Department of Telecom is all set to allocate start-up spectrum to new players in four more circles of Maharashtra, Mumbai, Kolkata and Madhya Pradesh.
The new players include Datacom promoted by Mahendra Nahata of HFCL, realty major Unitech, BPL led Loop Telecom, Swan Telecom and Tata Teleservice under the dual technology clause and others.
The DoT has already alloted start-up spectrum in five circles of Tamil Nadu, including Chennai, Karnataka, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.
Spectrum refers to the radio frequency that enables wireless communications and has been the sources of considerable controversy over the past one year due to differences between the existing players and the policy makers over the dual technology and revised norms of spectrum allocation.
The association of existing GSM players, Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), had strongly opposed the move to give new licences saying there was not enough spectrum.
The DoT had earlier said that enough spectrum was available to meet the demands by the existing players as well as new players.
Shyam Telecom, which has opted to adopt CDMA technology for the mobile services has already got spectrum in most of the circles, except in two major circles of Delhi and Mumbai.