Why unsold 700 MHz spectrum will pinch consumers

Not a single telecom firm bid for 700 MHz spectrum

GN Bureau | October 7, 2016


#Mobile Phone Connectivity   #Telecom   #Spectrum   #3G  
Not a single telecom firm bid for 700 MHz spectrum
Not a single telecom firm bid for 700 MHz spectrum

Your mobile phone coverage would not have been patchy and you would have faced much fewer problems regarding mobile phone connectivity if the 700 MHz had been picked up by the telecom operators. But, that didn’t happen.

The government has described India’s largest spectrum sale which ended on Thursday as a success, with Rs65,789.12 crore being raised in revenue. The consumer, however, would have been better off if the lower end of the spectrum had been sold. It would have essentially put an end to mobile phone users desperately looking for better coverage areas so that they can carry on an unhindered conversation.

Read the COAI proposal for 700 MHz

The 700 MHz band is highly desired thanks to its electromagnetic properties. The frequencies in the band, between 698 and 806 MHz, travel farther and pass through walls and other obstacles much better than existing cell phone networks do, leading to a lower required number of cells to provide the same amount of coverage. In addition, because of the lower frequency, it would require less power to run a mobile phone/Internet cell on the 700 MHz band than on the other common bands, which are at higher frequencies, explains a survey paper.

For the industry, the band effectively cuts down capital expenditure involved in the process of erecting towers. The cost of delivering mobile services in the 700 MHz band is around 70 percent cheaper than in the 2,100 MHz band used for 3G services.

The steep price of 700 MHz proved to be a deterrent. It had a reserve or base price of Rs 11,485 crore per Mhz.

“May be the operators are not ready...it is not that the 700MHz is running away. If it was not sold this time, it will be sold next time. We will sell it. Despite 700 MHz remaining unsold, we are happy that the upfront payment we will get is the highest ever, in the last five years,” Communications minister Manoj Sinha told Hindu Business Line

Also read.

Comments

 

Other News

Is BharatNet digging too deep?

India’s ambition to become a digitally empowered society rests on the premise that every citizen, regardless of geography, should have access to reliable and affordable internet. At the heart of this mission is BharatNet, a flagship programme launched by the government of India to provide high-speed

WAVES Summit: A Global Media Powerhouse

In 2019, at the inauguration of National Museum of Indian Cinema, prime minister Narendra Modi had expressed his wish to have a forum of global repute similar to the World Economic Forum, Davos, for India’s media and entertainment (M&E) industry. That wish became reality with the WAVES Summit in

India’s silent lead crisis

Flint, Michigan, was a wake-up call. Lead contamination in water supplied to homes in that American city led to a catastrophic public health emergency in 2014, which is yet to be fully resolved. But India’s lead poisoning crisis is ten times worse- larger, quieter, and far most devastating. Nearly ha

‘Dial 100’: A tribute to the police force and its unsung heroes

Dial 100  By Kulpreet Yadav HarperCollins, 232 pages, Rs 299  A wife conspires with her ex-lover to mur

India’s economic duality: formal dreams, informal realities

“Whatever you can rightly say about India, the opposite is also true.” – Joan Robinson In its pursuit of becoming a $5 trillion economy, India has laid significant emphasis on formalizing its economic architecture—expanding digital payments, mandating

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now





Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter