Reliance communications have declared that in the recently concluded auction it has emerged as the only operator to now possess Pan India contiguous 800MHz spectrum upwards of 5MHz. Rcom plans to use this spectrum for a large scale FD-LTE rollout. Rcom has licences in 7 circles in 900MHz band which are expiring in December 2015, out of which it has managed to win back 900MHz spectrum in Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh and 1800MHz spectrum in Odisha and North East circles.
In the 3 circles of West Bengal, Assam and Bihar Rcom could not win back any spectrum. Rcom says that the 3 circles that it lost contribute to 7.1% of its total telecom revenue in India and they have accelerated the process of migrating the current subscribers in these circles from 2G to 3G to prevent any disruption of services. Rcom spent a total of Rs. 4,299 crores and has to make an upfront payment of Rs. 1,106 crores to the government before 31st March.
The band wise, circle wise new spectrum acquired by Rcom is as follows.
| 800 MHz Band | |
| Circle | Amount of Spectrum |
| Assam | 5 MHz |
| North East | 5 MHz |
| Gujarat | 2.5 MHz |
| Haryana | 1.25 MHz |
| Himachal Pradesh | 2.5 MHz |
| Jammu & Kashmir | 2.5 MHz |
| Odisha | 1.25 MHz |
| UP (West) | 1.25 MHz |
| Kolkata | 1.25 MHz |
| Punjab | 1.25 MHz |
| West Bengal | 1.25 MHz |
Reliance 900 Mhz Band
| 900 Mhz Band | |
| Circle | Amount of Spectrum |
| Himachal Pradesh | 5 MHz |
| Madhya Pradesh | 5 MHz
|
Reliance 1800 Mhz Band
| 1800 MHz Band | |
| Karnataka | 0.6 Mhz |
| Odisha | 5 Mhz |
| North-East | 5 MHz |
| Punjab | 0.6 Mhz |
| Haryana | 0.6 Mhz |
Rcom now has more than 5MHz of 800MHz spectrum which is ideal for launching FD-LTE (4G) services, but only the newly won spectrum is liberalised and can be used for 4G. If Rcom wishes to use its older 800MHz for 4G it will have to pay a onetime fee to DOT to liberalise its entire spectrum holding in that band. In any case, they will be open to the spectrum sharing and trading deals that will come to the table once DOT finalises the guidelines for the same.
