The government is all set to distribute 3G radio waves to telecom companies that bid the highest in the May'10 auction, but the allocation is held up owing to operators' opposition to certain changes proposed in licence conditions.

Sources in the know said the spectrum cannot be distributed unless the licences are amended incorporating new terms and conditions pertaining to 3G mobile telephony.

Leading telecom operators like Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone, Tatas and others had bagged the 3G spectrum and the government had set September 1 as the deadline for distributing the radio airwaves.

According to senior officials in the Department of Telecom (DoT), the decks have been cleared and the department is ready to handover the spectrum to the operators as of tomorrow.

Sources said defence forces, which were using the 3G spectrum, have agreed to vacate the required quantity to the mobile operators.

Asked whether there were differences between operators and DoT over execution of amendment in licences, sources said the operators have raised concern over increased spectrum usage charges for 3G services.

The operators' contention is that higher spectrum usage charges cannot be levied for 3G when the matter of increase in 2G spectrum charges was pending before telecom tribubal TDSAT.

TDSAT had stayed DoT's decision to hike spectrum usage charges for 2G.

The auction of 3G spectrum had helped the government raise over Rs 67,000 crore.

Operators are confident that if the spectrum is handed over to them by September, they can roll out services by the end of 2010 or early 2011.

If the spectrum is handed over tomorrow, then operators will be able to launch the much-awaited 3G services by the year-end.

The 3G technology, or third generation mobile technology, will allow telecom operators to offer high quality voice service and faster internet services on mobile phones, besides make video calls and watch live TV.

Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications had recently announced that they are ready with their 3G infrastructure and are waiting for the government to release spectrum.