Nov 12: The slinging match has started between Anil Ambani Chairman of Reliance Communication and Arun Sarin, CEO, Vodafone and other players in the telecom sector.
In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Ambani alleged that the GSM providers are misleading to prevent new entrant in this game. Earlier Ambani has supported government decision to allow CDMA operators to extend its service under the existing licences.
A letter was also shot of by the GSM player Arun Sarin, questioning the new formula of spectrum allocation prescribed by Telecom Engineering Centre under the Department of Telecommunication (DoT).
The heat was felt over last month’s spectrum allocation as Ambani has also accused the GSM players of trying to stockpile spectrum and limit competition, besides resorting to anti-consumer practices.
The letter also mentioned that GSM operators has got spectrum free of cost thus challenging the established GSM players like Vodafone, Bharti Airtel who were asking for more spectrum.
The letter said, “The GSM players has got far in excess of 6.2 MHz, they were entitled under their licences. This has enabled them to avoid capital expenditure of an estimated over Rs 20,000 crore, generate abnormal profits for themselves and to deprive the government of revenues”.
The Department of Telecom can ask them to surrender excess spectrum from GSM players.
While another letter by Arun Sarin, who seems to be unsatisfied with the recommendations of DoT raised concern over it , he wrote, “We are of the opinion that the (Telecom Engineering Centre) TEC’s analysis and recommendations are flawed and do not constitute a sound basis on which significant decisions affecting the future of our industry can be made. Furthermore, once a decision is made which results in further fragmentation of spectrum, it will be impossible to reverse and will create long-term harm to the ability of the sector to meet the needs of Indian consumers and businesses.”
Ambani reacted to the allegation that government had favoured RCom by allowing it to offer dual technology under the same licence; he said that DoT has followed the same rule in granting approval to CDMA players to offer GSM services.
With both the letters making noise, DoT reports are awaited which has constituted a Panel to revise the spectrum allocations.
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