It is hardly surprising to see Tata Teleservices walking out of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and terming it authoritarian and non-transparent. What is surprising is that Tata Teleservices agreed to become a member in the first place.
COAI was set up by the older lot of GSM mobile players who wanted the old regime of subscriber-linked spectrum allocations to continue; they did not want new players to come in as this would reduce the spectrum available for them to expand their subscriber base. Naturally, when the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) asked the older players to pay for the extra spectrum they had got, they were to object. Tata Teleservices and other new GSM players were not affected by this; indeed, Trai recommended they got some more spectrum — spectrum that the older players thought belonged to them by right. So, there was bound to be a face-off between them, and that is precisely what has happened.
Saurav Gupta, New Delhi
