Vodafone, Airtel to get more spectrum

Contrary to expectation, Bharti Airtel in the Delhi circle and Vodafone Essar in both Delhi and Mumbai circles will get additional spectrum once the government accepts the telecom regulator's recommendation to link such allocation to the subscriber base.

With a subscriber base of 3.6 million in Delhi in November Bharti is close to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's stand that an operator has to reach the 3 million mark in order to get spectrum up to 12.4 Mhz. At the moment Bharti has 10 Mhz in Delhi. Under the current policy, it was entitled to 15 MHz upon reaching 2.1 million in subscription. However, that did not happen.

However, given that its subscriber number is already above 3 million and growing every month, it will be entitled to at least another 2.4 Mhz in Delhi if even if the TRAI recommendations are accepted.

Similarly Vodafone-Essar has crossed the 3 million subscriber mark in Delhi as well as Mumbai, which will entitle it to at least another 1 MHz of spectrum. It has 3.06 million subscribers in Delhi and 3.08 million subscribers in Mumbai.

TRAI has recommended that an operator should get 10 Mhz spectrum when it reaches 2 million in subscriber numbers and 12.4 MHz when it reaches 3 million.

However, the Government has still not made it clear as to whether calculation of the subscriber base for additional allocation of 1 Mhz would have to be re-calculated or should be based on proportionate calculation of the TRAI recommendations.

Just a few days ago the Department of Telecom accepted the recommendations of the TRAI which had hiked the subscriber base criterion by two to four times.