The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Wednesday recommended a base price of 2,720 crore rupees per mega hertz (Mhz) for pan India 3G spectrum.
The base price is about 22 percent lower than the previous auction which would provide relief to the mobile operators. Earlier in 2010, the 3G spectrum was auctioned by the government at pan-India reserve price of 3,500 crore rupees per mega hertz.
TRAI has also recommended that Department of Telecom (DoT) should put additional 15 mega hertz for auction which will have to be obtained in exchange of spectrum, that is, with the Defence services.
Meanwhile, the regulator has recommended that the DoT should take all the measures to ensure that the 2,100 MHz spectrum is also put to auction. The 2,100 MHz spectrum was earlier assigned to S-TeL in three service areas, Bihar,Orissa and Himachal Pradesh.
In 201, STeL closed its business in India after the Supreme Court cancelled 122 licences in the 2G spectrum allocation case.