In an effort to expedite CDMA spectrum third round auction, the Department of Telecom (DoT) has written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) asking it to recommend the reserve price within two weeks.
Government had recently announced that the third round auction of 800 MHz CDMA band is to be held by early January 2014.
As per official sources, DoT in a letter dated November 13 to TRAI has said that “It has been decided that 800 megahertz (CDMA) band will be put to auction in the next round of auction of spectrum.” Sources further added that DoT has asked Trai to provide its recommendations on reserve price, preferably within two weeks, so that the auction of spectrum in 800 Mhz can also be carried out as planned in early January 2014.
TRAI has asked the Government to explore the possibility of using a part of CDMA spectrum for extended GSM (E-GSM) services. Since the regulator does not favour auction of spectrum in this frequency band (800 Mhz) at present.