Can't vacate spectrum before two years: MoD

In what could jeopardise India's 3G dream, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has questioned the Department of Telecommunication's assurance to the operators that 40 MHz of spectrum would be vacated by July.

The assurance was given when Dayanidhi Maran was the Union communications minister.

Hitting out at the assurance, the MoD pointed out that an exclusive fibre network for the Army would require shifting to an alternative spectrum band, at least two years and a cost of over Rs 4,000 crore.

(Earlier, after its meeting with the armed forces, the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd or the BSNL had stated that laying an exclusive fibre network for the armed forces would require an additional cost of Rs 1,500 crore, escalating the project cost to Rs 3,076 crore, only for the Army. The total project cost for the three services is expected to be Rs 4,000 crore.)

This is nearly four times that of the DoT-sanctioned fund "" Rs 980 crore "" for the armed forces' exclusive project. Furthermore, the MoD has conveyed to the DoT that it has given no indication regarding additional allocation of funds.

The MoD also made it clear to the DoT that since spectrum could be released only after the completion of the new fibre network, giving a deadline for the 40 Mhz spectrum to be vacated and assuring the operators about this is not desirable.

The ministry pointed out that a meeting of the steering committee (the panel has members from the Army, Navy and state-owned BSNL), to deliberate on vacating spectrum and building alternate spectrum band infrastructure, had not taken place for over six months.

These objections by the defence ministry are sure to affect the ambitious target of 500 million telephone subscribers by 2010-end, set when Maran was the communications minister.

The DoT had then assured operators that work on shifting the armed forces to an alternative spectrum band would be completed by July. The 40 MHz spectrum vacated by the armed forces were meant to be used for introduction of the 3G services, as well as meeting the needs of the existing 2G operators starved of spectrum.