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Key officials of Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, the country's top three operators, have met officials of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), on Friday, on the delayed allocation of spectrum and possible temporary disruption in services in Delhi and Kolkata.
According to a source with knowledge, operators have made their representations before the secretary on the issue, and sought time for the network reconfiguration.
"The department also understood the technical issues related to the reconfiguration. However, there is no assurance from the DoT as of now. We hope DoT won't do anything that would hit the mobile users," said the source.
Following the delay in allocation of spectrum that operators have acquired in February this year, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India have sought extension of time to reconfigure their networks. They have received the spectrum earlier this month. However, this was rejected by the DoT. The operators asked for additional time as licences will expire in November. If the network reconfiguration is not completed before that date, consumers will face temporary disruption in services.
According to operators, the reconfiguration of networks will take about six months. "The Government should not take a decision so that consumers would suffer. Reconfiguration is required as allotted spot frequencies are different from what was earlier within the same band," said Rajan Mathews, director general, Cellular Operators Association of India that lobbies for the mobile operators in India.
The DoT has rejected the plea of Bharti Airtel and Vodafone as allowing additional time would effectively extend the licence terms beyond 20 years. But, industry experts say the DoT can always offer temporary licences to the operators to continue services using the spectrum they have been using for these many years, until the reconfiguration is complete. "There is a provision in the regulatory guidelines," noted a senior regulatory expert with a telco.
Meanwhile, Rahul Khullar, chairman, Telecom regulatory Authority of India (Trai), has written to DoT secretary Rakesh Garg stating that the DoT should arrive at a feasible solution so that consumers' inconvenience can be avoided.
"The authority is seriously concerned that this delay on the part of the wireless planning & coordination cell in assigning spectrum in the 1,800MHz band may lead to a partial breakdown of services offered by these two operators, especially in Delhi, the national capital. This will inconvenience consumers greatly. Both these operators have around 20 million subscribers in Delhi, which constitute around 45% of the total subscriber base of Delhi licensed area. It is apprehended that in December there will be a serious deterioration in the quality of service to these subscribers because of call drops, network congestion etc," Khullar wrote.
A temporary disruption would effectively hit about 30 million users in Delhi and Kolkata. Bharti Airtel has 15 million subscribers in Delhi and Kolkata while Vodafone India has about 14 million customers at the end of August 2014.
Also, operators have acquired less quantity of spectrum in these circles in the February auction. In the 900MHz band, Bharti Airtel bought 5MHz of airwave, while it had 8MHz earlier. And Idea Cellular is a fresh entrant in the circle. In Kolkata, Airtel bought more, but Vodafone managed to get less.
