The industry has always complained about the lack of spectrum, the difficulty to get a license, the high-cost to be paid, and so on. At the Top View discussion organized by VOICE&DATA on spectrum management, top spokespersons of the cellular, VSAT, ISP, and basic services industries assembled to discuss these very issues. The industry representatives were TV Ramachandran, director general, COAI; Wg Cdr BG Bhalla, secretary, VSAI; Commodore Shyam Kaushal, director, JCS, Ministry of Defence; S Ramaganapathy, senior DDG (transmission), BSNL; Deepak Maheshwari, head (technical group), ISPAI, and Barry G Hill, worldwide service provider, sales manager, HP. PK Garg, wireless advisor, DoT, took note of the spectrum-related problems haunting the industry.

The discussion, as expected, turned out to be a heated one, with the audience contesting as well as supporting the comments of the panelists. RN Agarwal, member of RRB, ITU, and ex-wireless advisor to the government, moderated the discussion. Excerpts:

Spectrum Planning
RN Agarwal, member of RRB, ITU, and ex-wireless advisor to the government: On the face of it, it might appear that the spectrum is quite in abundance as you could theoretically go up to about 3,000 GHz. However, the resources are limited as far as its applications and use is concerned. It is fundamentally because there is no technology available. Moreover, the usage requirements for various services and applications are enormous.

PK Garg, wireless advisor, DoT: The spectrum planning and forecasting is primarily the function of the WPC wing of ministry of communications and IT—the national spectrum management authority. What basically we are doing is taking into account the technological development, which in turn, is reflected in the changes in international radio frequency allocation. We try to revise our national frequency allocation plan in the light of the national requirement, our national priorities and the latest revision of NFAP. The national frequency allocation plan has come into effect from 1 January 2002. As per the ITU definition of telecommunication, a whole lot of services are included in telecom and is not confined to only public communication services. Maritime mobile communications, broadcasting, space services—all are included in telecom. On the radio communication end, there are 40 different communication services. In the overall national interest, we have to take care of all these requirements.

Commodore Shyam Kaushal, director, JCS Ministry of Defence: Defense equipment comprises radio communication, which comprises radars, strategic force satellites, and almost everything that one can think of—aircraft, ships, and tanks. When the industry develops some equipment, in any frequency bandwidth, it would be a good idea if the defense is kept involved or at least, informed of such details. But the industry also tends to keep its card very close to the chest. When ultimately the equipment is developed, they find out the need for frequency, and approach to WPC. Then WPC sends it back to us where we already have something operating and planned for. Had this little coordination taken place at the inception stage, this problem would not have occurred.

S Ramaganapathy, senior DDG (transmission), BSNL: For new services on the WLL and cellular fronts, there could be limitations in the bandwidth available, so this is one issue on which we have to think and see how other band could be made available.

Deepak Maheshwari, head (technical group), ISPAI: It is imperative that we have a proper record of the current usage of frequencies, so that any sort of forecast can take into account the actual current usage and not just be based on old allocations. Many of the licensees might not even be using the allocated frequencies. Usage on paper should not obstruct the way for potential users.

TV Ramachandran, director general, COAI: The cellular industry, till now, is one of the largest users of spectrum. And GSM is the fastest growing technology even today. When that is the case, I think it is a bit worrying that we have given way to the wrongful allocation of 10 MHz of rightful GSM spectrum to WLL. We need to rectify that and forestall such happenings as and when they come.

On the cellular mobile front in India, on an average we have 6.2 MHz per operator and that is abysmally low. In Europe, the average spectrum per operator is about 19 MHz, and world average is about 17 MHz.

Wg Cdr BG Bhalla, secretary, VSAI: Unlike other telecom services, VSAT service has to depend on space segment. You don’t have transponders, you can’t run your service, thanks to NTP ’99 and also the national SATCOM policy, we are now being allowed using Ku-band, which is in abundance. There are 100 to 80 transponders, which are lying unused in Ku-band and Kv-band... the industry is once again looking up.

RN Agarwal: As far as the question of allocation is concerned, I believe that when the NFAP evolved, there was total transparency. It was put on the website. The comments were asked not only from India but even abroad, and meetings were also held. Every sector participated on equal footing and NFAP was created with full participation of the private sector.

Wg Cdr Bhalla: I understand it’s a common practice to have an interference locator. our country should be deploying something like that.

RN Agarwal: Yes, we have some limitations about the systems, which can locate the source of interference. At present, we have about half-a-dozen mobile systems to cover the whole of India, but that is not sufficient. The WPC is going in for a very big project to largely augment this facility and the contract for that has been signed recently. Hopefully, in a period of two years, we should be able to increase this facility by almost seven to eight times.

TV Ramachandran: If I remember correctly, the amount of Rs 360 crore was identified and required for sorting out equipment-related problems, and that was three years ago. And one knows to what level the equipment prices have crashed since then. So what appeared to be Rs 360 crore then is more likely to be less than Rs 250 crore today. The industry doing the contribution in the form of license fees to the government. But what is the use of the license if spectrum is not available. The license fee given by the industry should be kept aside, the radio regulatory body—WPC—should be authorized and fully empowered, to use that for efficient allocation of spectrum and reallocation of existing occupants wherever required.

Spectrum Discipline
PK Garg: For spectrum discipline, the key word is mutual cooperation, which is possible only when all the wireless users are able to cooperate with the regulation authority and among themselves. As far as regulation is concerned, I personally feel that in the present era of liberalization, there should be minimum regulation. But at the same time, you will appreciate that if we are going to liberalize then we are going to have effective regulation as well, otherwise there will be chaos. WPC as such can check and monitor only on a random basis. Also, we cannot check each and every operation 24 hours a day, so what is required is cooperation of everybody. Then only we can derive the best out of the spectrum available.

Deepak Maheshwari: The local issues need to be sorted out at the local level, as everything can not be done at the national level. Because at the national level, one can probably do micro-level planning, but at the local level, it is the people who are managing the traffic and seeing the patterns of growth in the traffic who would be in a better position to address the issues.

Commodore Kaushal: From the defense perspective, interference on the spectrum can have very grave ramifications. We may not get the report of intrusion of airspace by the enemy. Aircraft navigation systems can get interfered with causing then to stay off the course and get into trouble or even a crash. You have cases where civil jet airlines are shot down because of a wrong response due to some interference. In the bordering areas, the major apprehension is whether the interference is from the own operators or from enemy sources.

Pricing and Licensing
Deepak Maheshwari: Licensing in terms of the paper work is quite elaborate. The whole process I believe saps energy and efforts of WPC, which is more crucial in terms of management of these things rather than just looking after the paper work. Also, the value of a spectrum in a metro for the same amount could be very different. What is the incentive for an operator to go for last mile whether it is WLL, Internet or cellular in the smaller areas? If the spectrum charges are same, every body will focus on the bigger cities.

Barry Hill: Value of spectrum is a function of the cost of the infrastructure to roll out services and how do I advertise my existing infrastructure, which I have got in place. So I don’t think spectrum is just a function of cost, but it is a function of value. How do I make money purchasing a particular spectrum or multiple spectrums and offer enough services? It is also a function of what handsets are available today, which have the ability to flip to different frequencies automatically.

PK Garg: The spectrum pricing cannot be decided just in isolation. We are trying to take into account as many factors as possible, and as appropriately in the national context. The basic principle is that spectrum should be priced at an appropriate level. If we price it too cheap then there is a possibility that people will try to hoard the spectrum. Also, we are trying to find out the appropriate price for different spectrum or frequency bands.

For a siting clearance, SACFA had evolved a time frame of three months. This year, we were inundated with a rush of applications because of the fourth cellular operators and basic service providers going in for WLL. The average number of siting applications per year was 8,000–9,000. But in the three months, this year, we received more than 10,000 applications, so it is humanely impossible for SACFA members to deal with such a huge rush in a time-bound manner.

Nareshchandra Laishram