The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday said that it has extended the deadlines for stakeholder and counter comments on its discussion paper on delicensing some 4G spectrum for M2M communications.

This is the second time when the regulator has extended the deadlines.

TRAI has now sought comments on the consultation paper by January 12, 2017, and counter-comments by January 19. It had originally sought such submissions by November 15 and November 29 respectively. It had then extended the deadlines to December 6 and December 14 on industry request.

The step was taken following extension sought by various industry stakeholders, the regulator said in a statement on Monday.

“Industry associations have sought further extension and the Authority has also written to all state governments/union territories and various central ministries seeking inputs on sectors likely to get impacted by deployment of M2M devices,” Trai said.

The regulator added that these inputs would be valuable in forming a comprehensive recommendation by the Authority.

The Indian government had acknowledged the potential of M2M in the National Telecom Policy, 2012. Originally issued in October, the paper sought industry feedback on delicensing a portion of 700 Mhz band for short-range M2M communications, especially since M2M devices have lower power and spectrum needs.

Trai also invited industry views on the quantum of airwaves and the specific bands needed for M2M communications, and whether these need to be delicensed. Furthermore, it sought suggestions on whether access services/internet service licence conditions need to be tweaked to pave the way for M2M service providers (MSPs).

Also read: National Telecom M2M Roadmap released, focuses to put infrastructure in place

The regulator also sought feedback on quantum of entry fees, performance/financial bank guarantees for potential MSPs. Machine to machine (M2M) is a broad label that can be used to describe any technology that enables networked devices to exchange information and perform actions without the manual assistance of humans. The M2M technology allows wired and wireless devices to talk to each other using sensors, and applications.