CCI chairman favours spectrum auction

GSM mobile operators have found support from the Competition Commission of India which said that competitive bidding was the right method of allocating the scarce spectrum to telecom services provider.

"In India, competitive bidding is used in case of oil and gas blocks, coal blocks and concessions for development of highways and airports and other assets. So why not spectrum?," CCI acting chairman Vinod Dhall said disagreeing with the government's announcement ruling out the auction of spectrum.

As regards the legal commitment of spectrum toward the existing players, the CCI chief said that "such commitments could be fulfilled by the government at price to be discovered through competitive bidding combined with some other modes".

Communication minister A Raja had recently said that auctioning of spectrum would not stand legal scrutiny and any such decision would create a level playing field in favour of existing players as they have the airwaves at the existing price of Rs 1,651 crore for a pan-India spectrum.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) is also of the view that the objective of government still has not changed from increasing penetration of service and affordability and rise in the spectrum prices would lead to higher tariffs and that would not be acceptable.

Brushing aside the speculation that under the competitive bidding new players will stand no chance, he said, the serious participants will have every possibility of winning if they are aggressive and efficient enough.