 "DoT to seek Trai views on quality of services issues")
According to a recent note, DoT may seek comments of Trai on various observations made by DG (Audit). The letter (from DG audit) has adversely commented on Trai in respect of QoS, and consequently on the issue of allocation of additional spectrum to mobile operators to maintain the required quality of service.
In a recent letter to the DoT secretary M F Farooqui, Sinha has raised questions on the credibility of data provided to Trai by companies and survey done by the regulator to gauge mobile services quality.
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The auditor has also sought DoT’s comments on its draft report. However, in a recent note, DoT has mentioned that the Trai Act does not authorise the government to interfere in the working of the regulator. So, it would not be able to issue any direction to Trai on the subject.
The DG (Audit) has also noted that cartelisation by telecom players was one of the main reasons behind the failure of recent spectrum auctions and pointed finger at the conduct of Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular and Tata Teleservices in this regard.
It is also mentioned in the letter of DG (Audit) that the Government could have earned a few more thousands of crores of rupees as revenue towards spectrum usage charges during the past five years if DoT could have allocated available spectrum to the existing operators whose applications are pending for additional airwaves. However, as the spectrum was not allocated among the operators, no negligible revenue is received from 50 licencees during the past five years.
According to Sinha’s communication to DoT secretary, going by Trai estimates, the 453.50 MHz spectrum, which is still available for allocation to operators, could be valued at Rs 85014.18 crore.
Trai had in its report in April 2012 stated that 581 MHz spectrum was available in the 1800 MHz band for allocation for commercial telecom services across India. DoT, meanwhile, has managed to sell just 127.50 MHz of spectrum through auctions in November 2012, Sinha stated in his letter.
Sinha has also pointed out that DoT has not taken any action to incentivise the efficient utilisation of spectrum, which has also resulted poor quality of services for the consumers.
Incumbent operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular had repeatedly requested DoT to allocate additional spectrum, but there was very little participation from the existing operation in the auctions in November 2012 and March 2013.
According to Sinha’s communication, it is likely that operators are compromising with the quality of service standards set by Trai. There is also possibility of inaccurate data in quality of service reports submitted by the telecom operators or service providers could have represented inflated data on their subscriber base, it added.
The CAG had earlier said that the spectrum allocation to the companies without auction in 2008 had caused a presumptive loss of Rs 1,76,000 crore to the Government exchequer.
In November 2012, the government had managed to get just Rs 9,407 crore from spectrum auction, while the auction in March 2013 fetched just Rs 3,600 crore as GSM operators stayed out of the auction and only Sistema Shyam Teleservices participated for spectrum in select service areas.