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Andrew Bonwick
Vice President of Product Development at Relm Insurance
Madhav Sheth
CEO of Ai+ Smartphone
Stephen Rose
CEO Render Networks
In a decision that may bring the much awaited cheer to the Ambani family, the telecom department has given the go ahead signal for liberalisation of 850 MHz spectrum being traditionally used by Rcom for CDMA EvDO operations to be converted to technology neutral and capable of deploying 4G LTE services. This will happen once Rcom pays the market determined price for the high efficiency spectrum on a pro rata basis for the remainder of the license period for that band in 19 circles.
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This decision was crucial for the spectrum trading and sharing pacts between the Ambani brothers to materialise, as the current guidelines dictate that spectrum sharing can only happen between two operators who own spectrum in the same band in a circle and if both own either non liberalised or liberalised spectrum in that band. In the case of the Ambani brothers, Elder brother’s Reliance Jio owns liberalised spectrum in 850 MHz band while younger brother’s Reliance communications owns administratively allocated non liberalised spectrum in that band.
After the payment of Rs. 5900 Crore Rcom will have successfully liberalised its spectrum in these 19 circles and can go ahead with spectrum trading and sharing deals in these circles with Jio after 22nd Jan 2015. As you can recall Rcom recently signed an all stock swap deal for merging its operations with MTS which added more liberalised 850 MHz spectrum to its kitty in 9 circles and non liberalised spectrum in Rajasthan circle. Rcom could after liberalisation trade 5 MHz contiguous chunks in all MTS overlap circles to Jio and later enter into a sharing agreement with Jio for all 19 circles.
