India to Allowing New Entrants in 3G Spectrum Sale

India's Department of Telecom (DoT) has decided to ignore recommendations from the telecoms regulator and will allow foreign and incumbent operators to provide 3G services in the country. The DoT has announced that it plans to allow companies to bid for up to 10 MHz of 3G spectrum - compared to the 5MHz block that the TRAI wanted to offer.

Had the TRAI recommendation been accepted then that would have blocked new entrants into the market as new entrants generally require a minimum of 10 MHz of 3G spectrum, whilst the incumbents could manage a migration policy with just 5Mhz.

The DoT has agreed to auction the spectrum in 5Mhz blocks, but will allow new entrants to bid for 2 blocks of spectrum. Existing operators will be restricted to bidding for just one block each.

Posted to the site on 20th March 2008