Trai wants to allocate 10 Mhz in 700 Mhz band to machine-to-machine services

NEW DELHI: India’s warring telecom companies have found a common ground. Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio Infocomm have joined hands in opposing the sector regulator’s proposal to allocate 10 Mhz of the premium 700 Mhz band radio waves for machine-to-machine (M2M) services.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is conducting a consultation process that also include delicensing a centric portion of 10 MHz in the super-efficient 4G airwaves in the 700 Mhz band for M2M communications.

M2M technologies, typically, allow wired and wireless devices to talk to each other using sensors, and such applications can be deployed in new-age infrastructure projects such as smart cities, smart grids, smart heath and smart transportation. The government has yet to sell spectrum in the 700 Mhz band. Telecom companies, which see great opportunities in new-age technologies, may find it nonviable to spend thousands of crores to buy these airwaves if they have to compete with players who provide M2M services by utilising an unlicensed portion of the band that comes free.



Sunil Mittal-controlled Bharti Airtel and Mukesh Ambani-owned Jio, in separately filed views on the paper, opposed any such move, saying that it would distort the playing field and valuation of airwaves.

“If some portion of the 700 MHz band is unlicensed, it will adversely affect the valuation and cause a huge revenue loss to the exchequer as telcos would be reluctant to pay a huge amount for this premium spectrum, given the huge risk of interference,” Airtel said.

According to the market leader, the move will make the playing field uneven: while one operator will be paying Rs 11,435 crore for a MHz of spectrum – as per the base price in the previous auctions – another will get access to the unlicensed portion of the same band at no cost for offering M2M mobile services.

Jio said it would not be prudent to carve out this band for M2M communications without realising its full commercial potential.

“In the absence of any interference studies for this gap band, any decision to delicense this band would be premature,” Jio said in its comments to the Trai paper.

These companies have come together to take up a common cause even as they continue to hurl accusations at each other over issues such as points of interconnection, interconnect user charges, promotional offers and even advertisements, with Airtel, Vodafone and Idea on one side and Jio on the other. While the telcos are at loggerheads on other issues, they wouldn’t want to share the highly efficient 700 Mhz band – which is used for 4G and can be utilised in future for 5G – with any unlicensed entity, that too for free, say experts.

GSM lobby group Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and Jio, said delicensing even a portion of the frequency would “pose considerable interference risks” without providing any significant benefits due to uncoordinated use.

COAI director-general Rajan S Mathews told ET that there was no need for any separate allocation of spectrum for M2M services, and that the services can be continued to be provided over the licensed spectrum acquired by telcos as the underlying network resources for both M2M and person-to-person communication would be the same.

“In order to maintain a level playing field, it is important that M2M services are permitted to be provided under a licence only,” he said.

A M2M service provider, according to COAI, would have a regulatory and commercial advantage over telecom service providers who would be subjected not only to a licensing and regulatory framework but also to a licence fee, levy towards the universal service obligation fund and spectrum usage charge on the revenue earned from these services.

In May 2015, the government came out with a national telecom M2M roadmap to facilitate the development of M2M-based products and services with a lightweight regulation that calls for an MSP (M2M service provider) registration.

Trai wants to fuel the adoption of M2M communications to complement the government’s Digital India initiative, and sought industry views if MSPs be kept under the OSP (other service providers) category.