Delicensing in E&V Bands

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has revived a two-year old proposal to give free spectrum in E & V-Bands to anyone who agrees to pay just Rs 10,000 as entry-fee. This spectrum is highly valuable. At 4G auction levels, this works out to at least Rs 2.57 lakh crore to Rs 6.42 lakh crore, calculated at 2 to 5 pc of 4G spectrum sale value. Government will lose huge money if DoT’s gameplan is allowed for the benefit of few big select companies.

The DoT is misleadingly presenting the move as a massive employment generation venture in rural areas owing to rollout of broadband services by Public Data Offices (PDOs). PDOs will not own or deploy infrastructure. They are only venue providers to PDO Aggregators (PDOAs), which will be big companies who will provide last mile WiFi services through PDOs by setting up WiFi hotspots.