TRAI unlikely to revisit 3300-3600 MHz spectrum band reserve price

“We are unlikely to revisit our pricing and stand that we have already taken earlier, but may consider newer bands such as the millimeter wave (mmWave) band (26 GHz range) with a reasonable price to drive economic benefits,” a source told ETTelecom

The sector regulator is considering at least 1000MHz that may facilitate telecom operators to unleash true potential of 5G and drive countrywide potential across business use cases.

Even in the absence of any reference or notice from the Centre, the regulator has already initiated in-house studies to arrive at a suitable base price and quantum.

Mobile telephony incumbents particularly Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have

been demanding a cut in the base price of 3300-3600 MHz band which was set up at Rs 492-crore per unit by Trai in 2018.

The regulatory official, however, believes that the market remains untested for the newer band in the offing, and it would be premature to say that reserve price was too high in the first place.

In 2019, the sector regulator had junked the Department of Telecommunications move to cut 5G airwaves pricing citing, “the authority reiterates the spectrum valuation and reserve prices as contained in its recommendations dated 1st August 2018.”

The department has previously indicated that the unsold 700 Mhz spectrum may be offered in the 5G auction along with those in the 3300-3600 MHz band meant for 5G services.

In March this year, the coveted 700 MHz spectrum band did not find any buyer as telecom carriers perceived the base price as too high to bid despite a 50% cost reduction to Rs 6,568 crore per unit from a whopping Rs 11,485 crore per unit in 2016 auction.

Sunil Mittal-driven Bharti Airtel said that the band had no economic case for operators due to high base price. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio and Vodafone Idea too remained wary during the sale.

However, the department’s wireless planning wing has already allotted 5G trial spectrum in the 700 Mhz, 3.5 Ghz and 26 Ghz bands to telecom service providers paving the way for Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea to partner with network vendors to build locally-relevant use cases.

Telcos led by lobby group Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) have been asking the department to seek reserve prices from Trai for multiple frequencies being used for field trials that included mmWave band which has a better ecosystem worldwide.

Industry has been demanding a larger chunk of spectrum to roll out the next generation of services and eying potential enterprise offerings centered around the internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR) and robotics. Koliasa