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.
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.
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.
By Baishakhi Dutta
