Recommendations on spectrum auction by 15th April: TRAI

Telecom regulator TRAI will give the recommendations on spectrum auction before 15th April, its Chairman J S Sarma said on Wednesday."We should be able to give recommendation on this (auction of spectrum) before April 15," Sarma told reporters in New Delhi.

The recommendations are expected to give guidance on key issues including base price of spectrum, amount of spectrum that should be allocated to a bidder and eligible participants.On the Unified Licensing regime, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Chairman said recommendations for it should be submitted by next week."I think by next week, we should be giving out recommendations for Unified Licence," Sarma said.

Trai is expected to give out detailed guidelines on unified licences that will be issued to all telecom companies in future and will be delinked from spectrum.Trai, in its draft guidelines on unified licences, has proposed a fee of Rs 20 crore for a national-level unified licence under the new regime.Under the new regime, it is proposed that there would be only four types of licences as against many across the communications sector at present.Trai had issued consultation paper on 'Auction of Spectrum' on 7^th March.

The regulator in this paper had sought industry views on a host of topics like the amount of spectrum to be auctioned, liberalisation and refarming of spectrum in 800/900 MHz bands, structure of auction and eligibility criteria for participation.

Spectrum block size, reserve price, roll-out obligations, spectrum usage charges and trading were the other issues.The consultation paper showed 60 Mhz and 413.6 Mhz of spectrum will be vacated in 800 Mhz and 1800 Mhz spectrum bands respectively, from the cancellation of 122 2G licences ordered by the Supreme Court in February.

In the consultation paper issued, Trai has put forward various models that can be used for auction.Similarly, for deciding minimum value for spectrum to start auction, Trai has not specifically indicated price but has asked for a model that should be used for determining the base price.