Spice Joins the Fray Along With TRAI and COAI; Fists of Fury Fly at DoT
By Rafat Ali - Thu 17 Jan 2008 01:09 PM PST
[by Cerius Shah] If it reads like a fight it probably is one. In what seems to be the start of DoT vs World, Round 2, the Department of Telecom is getting loads of grief over their spectrum and license allocation policies from the TRAI and now the GSM lobby and Spice. According to this ET report, after the TRAI’s objection to the norms of spectrum allocation, the COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India) has alleged that the ‘more users = more spectrum’ philosophy of the DoT is not according to TRAI’s recommendations.
After the roundhouse, Spice has decided to jab in, moving TDSAT on the DoT’s refusal to give it a pan-India license. The BK-Modi owned company (of which Telekom Malaysia owns 39%) were the only two operators (along with S-tel) that were denied pan India licenses, in this case, for not having enough networth.
Incase of the COAI raising objections after DoT has announced the allocation of spectrum, I think it’s a case of “get what we can and then raise a hell”. Mr. A Raja has some trying times ahead. Reliance, TATA, COAI, DoT, TRAI…any more of these bare knuckle rounds and we will be reporting the Royal Rumble.
