ITU-APT Foundation calls for 5G spectrum auctions without reserve price

Posted by ITU-APT Foundation

ITU, TRAI and DoT support wide-ranging telecom reforms at national celebration of World Telecom Information Society Day 2020

ITU-APT Foundation of India called upon the Finance Minister to allow auction of 5G spectrum in mid band and mm wave bands without any reserve price so that the goal of “Atamnirbhar Bharat” could be achieved. The 5G auctions have been bogged down due to high reserve prices and real market price cannot be determined and the whole mobile industry has been suffering.

Speaking at a virtual event to mark the national celebration of World Telecom Information Society Day 2020, Bharat Bhatia, President of the Foundation also called upon the government to work on four major initiatives in order to realize the initiative of Atamnirbhar India.

These are:

•  Low-cost 5G spectrum for operators in 3.6GHz and 26GHz through immediate spectrum auctions without any reserve price.
• Delicense E and V bands for backhaul, as well as last mile high-speed Internet access.
• Delicense additional 1200MHz for WiFi in 6GHz, with technical conditions to protect satellite uplinks, similar to what USA has done.
• Small area and captive telecom licensing to be delicensed to support industrial, captive and campus based telecom networks.

RS Sharma, Chairman, TRAI said that TRAI has endorsed many of these telecom reforms and have recommended these to the DoT. However, 5G spectrum auctions without any reserve price may be difficult to be accepted.

Malcolm Johnson Deputy Secretary General, ITU, Geneva while thanking ITU-APT Foundation for leading India’s participation in the ITU activities thanked India  for hosting the next ITU standardization  meet and underlined the importance of private sector in participation in various ITU activities.

Hari Ranjan Rao, Joint Secretary Telecom, Dept. of Telecommunications said that the performance of telecom has been commendable and we have always been the invisible hero in this COVID-19 fight. He added that the whole world is looking at us at this difficult tiles. He confirmed that the DoT will examine the suggestions made by the Foundation at this event.

Nigel Jefferies, Chairman, Wireless World Research Forum, UK, stated that the wireless technologies have been helping address the digital divide.

Rajan Mathews, Director General, COAI, supporting the proposal for low cost spectrum said that the spectrum is the building block of our industry. We need it at low prices.

—CT Bureau