GSM body protests DoT's norms

The Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) has shot off a letter to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) seeking allocation of the radio frequency under the existing criteria, in the wake of telecom regulator Trai raising the same issue with the DoT secretary in two letters over the last couple of days.

The COAI, the GSM body, has sought for the implementation of the subscriber-linked criteria that was rolled out on March 29, 2006, and has asked the DoT to issue spectrum to GSM operators under this formula.

In a letter dated January 16, 2008, addressed to the DoT's Wireless Planning Cell (WPC), the COAI has sought all applications of existing GSM licencees pending for additional allotment till date "must be honoured as per their eligibility under the criteria that was prevalent when these applications were made".

Stating that various orders of the WPC (dated January 9, 2000, and March 29, 2006), stated the same subscriber-linked criteria, and as there were no orders issued in between, the latter should be taken as the ruling criteria.

Pointing out the anomalies in the January 9 order, which superseded all existing orders, the COAI said it lacked a roadmap for spectrum entitlement to GSM operators beyond 7.2 MHz.

Moreover, Trai had recommended revised subscriber linkages of up to 15 MHz for GSM, while the WPC order is in "complete variance with this recommendation". The association said the DoT had not recommended criteria for allocation of additional spectrum beyond 7.2 MHz per circle for GSM operators.

Further, for CDMA operators, the 5-MHz subscriber base criteria recommended by Trai has been accepted, while in case of GSM, a new slab of 7.2 MHz (tranche of 1MHz) has been created, instead of accepting Trai's recommendation of 8 MHz.

"This truncation of GSM criteria to 7.2 MHz is against the Trai recommendations. It is also violative of level-playing field," it said.

Hence, all applications of existing GSM licencees pending for additional allotment till date must be honoured as per their eligibility under the criteria, it added.