KumaarShah 143 Report post Posted January 22, 2008 (edited) Our frequency allocation plan DPS Seth With the target of 250 million phone connections well in sight, the Indian government has spelt out its vision for 2010: 500 million telephone and 20 million broadband connections. Will this next leap be more of the same, with private Companies in full swing while the authorities muddle through spectrum issues? On current signs, the likelihood is strong. Yet, that may not hurt the telecom sector’s growth much. Cellular mobile technology systems are somewhat flexible in nature, in the sense that they are dependent on the intensity of phone usage, the geographical distribution of moving subscribers at a given point of time and the failure rate of calls we are willing to accept. This explains the growth in the last two years, despite frozen spectrum availability at the cost of service quality. Yet, undeniably, spectrum availability does pose a problem. This can be solved by using planning as a tool to convert the corporate vision into reality. It helps to note that spectrum planning in India is not around a vision spelt out by the government, but rather on the available slots as indicated by the Wireless Planning and Coordinating (WPC) agency while following international radio regulations. Thus, discussions on the National Frequency Allocation Plan (NFAP) cannot be considered open, and the process of consultation takes the form of specific demands made by users of the resource. This also implies that the intensity and urgency which exists for the freeing up of spectrum for telecom usage—in line with the government’s vision—need not necessarily get reflected in the plan, since the WPC, being a coordinating body, has to go through the painfully slow process of persuading a large number of users. Most users, understandably, resist vacation of what is in their possession, and the process of finalisation gets prolonged and often leads to shortsighted denial of spectrum to the really needy users. To vacate more spectrum, “frequency farming” has been done in the past. But this was done through gentle and persuasive means. Now, with a vision as dynamic as the present government’s, the gentle approach has to be dropped. However, in all fairness, and as any plan implies, the cost of such radio spectrum farming has to be met by the industry which benefits from it. Arguments on the security concerns of the country are supreme, of course, but to say that equipment is available only for the bands which are needed for telecom purposes would not be correct. There is much flexibility. In fact, one should see this as an opportunity for the Armed Forces and other users to modernise their equipment with finances from the telecom sector. The factors affecting spectrum requirements are (a) increasing demand, ( need for dramatic increase in service quality, © provisioning of broadband connections on wireless, and (d) availability and deployment of newer, more efficient technologies (for voice as well as data) such as WCDMA, HSDPA, EVDO and WiMax. The first three factors call for increase in spectrum, while the last factor indicates that the increase need not be linear. If, as an example, we carry out a spectrum requirement assessment for Delhi for voice and broadband services with these factors and the present allotment of 49.75 MHz in mind, it can be shown that Delhi needs a total of around 125 MHz. The currently available bands permit a total of 57.5 MHz. The remainder has to be in bands for which the abovementioned technology equipment is available. Space, therefore, has to be created in these bands by forced time-bound vacation of the bands with due financial compensation. Similar scenarios exist for other areas. The planning exercise, therefore, has to go beyond identifying available slots and even beyond persuading existing users to vacate some bands, and must insist on vacation of bands through incentives and direction. It could be achieved. Since the government is on record stating that up to 40 MHz of spectrum is available in the 3G band of 2.1 GHz, why hold up the process of allocation and the 3G policy? This delay is also holding up USF attempts to provide broadband in rural areas. In rural India, identification of the 450 MHz spectrum, particularly suitable for provisioning cost effective services in such areas, becomes a prime objective of the revised NFAP. This band has already been deployed for broadband capable equipment (upwards of 3.1 mbps) in several countries, and in each case, the available contiguous band is less than 5 MHz. Recently, Asia Pacific Telecommunity has requested the ITU to make this band available for IMT2000 (3G) services. It is an agenda item in the upcoming WARC. So, why should our NFAP not be proactive about it, especially since it identifies the entire 440-470 MHz band for fixed/mobile operations? A government directive can do the needful, if some assignments already exist. A similar approach is needed for the 1,800 MHz band, where the entire 75 MHz band has to be vacated with clear incentives of alternate bands for the Armed Forces and monetary compensation by the industry. These arguments apply to several other bands such as 2.5-2.69 GHz, 3.4-3.5 GHz and 5 GHz, some of which are needed for the upcoming WiMax technology. It’s time to act. —The author is former member of Trai. These are his personal views Link: http://www.financialexpress.com/news/Our-f...n-plan/210745/0 Edited January 22, 2008 by KumaarShah Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
