Rejecting the plea of Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) lobby, the Delhi High Court has cleared the hurdles of Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators to begin their service in GSM technology along with CDMA operations under dual technology license; if the petitioners do not move to Supreme Court on against the decision of High Court.
This decision of Delhi HC may also affect the judgement of Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) where the petitioners had already filed a case against the CDMA players for beginning their dual service, which next hearing date is scheduled on September 04.
Citing the decision, hearing Justice Gita Mittal has also slapped the fine of Rs.50,000 on each petitioners - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular, Spice Telecom and their industries association ‘Cellular Operators’ Association of India’ (COAI) by stating, “Government decision was in tandem with the Universal Access Service Licence (UASL) and in public interest.”
The fine will be deposited with the Delhi High Court Legal Service Authority.
COAI is yet to comment over this decision and its future steps, while Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) the lobby of CDMA players has expressed joy over this decision and quoted it as the ‘right’ decision and ‘in the interest of public’.
Welcoming the decision, S C Khanna the Secretary General of AUSPI said, “It allows the government policy to be carried out smoothly, and opens up the market for more operators, which ultimately will benefit the consumer.”
The GSM players share over two third ratio of total mobile subscribers that is nearby 30-millions in India, while CDMA players – Reliance Communication (RCom), Tata Teleservices Limited (TTS), state run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and Shyam Sistema shares only one third share. Among it, BSNL is the government telecom company that operates in both GSM and CDMA technology under dual technology license while till now RCom was the private operates that operates the GSM service in only eight circles of India.
But now, last December, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had granted the PAN India licence to RCom, TTS and Shyam-Sistema to begin GSM service on dual technology.
In that response, the GSM players had opposed the decision of TRAI and moved to Delhi HC and TDSAT. The COAI had also alleged TRAI to favouring Reliance by quoting that TRAI had granted the ‘in-principle approval’ to RCom well before announcing the new policy on dual technology into the public. This move of TRAI would allow RCom to get double benefit into yet to release 3G Spectrum allocation.
TRAI, however, had denied any sort of allegation of taking anyone’s favour while RCom has said that GSM players who have thick ratio of shares in release spectrum were trying to stop others from getting the start-up spectrum for operations in the same segment.
TRAI which had earlier announced to allocate the two bandwidths of 3G spectrum to CDMA players and for this, it was willing to introduce 3G spectrum policies later moved to introduce separate 3G spectrum policy for CDMA players.
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