Heading for court?

The recommendations by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on the review of licence terms has put the cat among the pigeons. At first glance the biggest gainer is Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications.

That's because Trai has at one go sought to tighten the norms for allocating additional spectrum to existing operators. Under the old norms, an operator in a C circle would get 15 MHz of spectrum with 1.2 million subscribers. The new norms mean that the same operator would get only 8 Mhz. To get 15 Mhz, the operator needs to have 8 milllion subscribers.

What it does is simply ensure that all those operators who had sought additional spectrum will not get any till they reach a much higher subscriber base. However, it cleans the way for new operators. After all, Trai has removed the cap on operators in a circle. So, logically there can be any number of operators, provided there is spectrum.

So operators like Aircel, Spice and Reliance will be in a better position to get spectrum. The big question is will all these operators set up the networks? Seems unlikely. What is likely to emerge is a set of operators who will hawk off the licences and the spectrum to existing operators.

Of the players in the running, this is a great opportunity for Reliance to roll-out a nationwide GSM network. The fun has just begun.

As things stand, lawyers will rake it in till such time as this debate is settled.