The BIF has urged telecom secretary Rakesh Garg to ensure such broadcast frequencies in the TV UHF band, which, typically, lie in the 470-698 MHz range, be only allocated through an open auction and not given away free, citing the spectrum's excellent propagation characteristics. BIF represents companies such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone, Qualcomm, Ericsson, Intel, Marvell, UTStarcom and Bharat Sanchar Nigam.
"Since TV UHF spectrum has excellent propagation characteristics, making it ideal for both in-building data services and rural coverage, it must be auctioned, given the limited amount of spectrum available for mobile services in the conventional 800, 900, 1800, 2100 MHz bands," said BIF in a letter to Garg, a copy of which was seen by ET.
BIF president T V Ramachandran told ET that "technology companies should also be encouraged to access TV UHF band airwaves only by participating in a suitable auction process, and with level-playing field conditions assured for all players".
According to him, all the talk of deploying TV white space technology for delivering affordable last mile broadband connectivity "is quite misleading" since there is "no genuine TV white space" in India. "We actually have wide open spectrum spaces since with only one terrestrial broadcaster (read: Doordarshan), the airwaves in the relevant TV UHF band remain largely unutilised."
Small wonder, BIF feels India can "ill afford to fritter away this precious resource", and has urged the government to ensure that the wide expanse of idle spectrum in the TV UHF band be made available to all players and aspirants, be it mobile and broadband operators or new entrants, through an open and transparent auction process.