Building a hope for earlier start of third generation (3G) services by the private telecom operators, the defence ministry has agreed to vacate 45 MHz of scarce radio spectrum. The telecom ministry and defence establishments had been on a long standing disagreement on the time frame of spectrum vacation by the later.
In a memorandum of understanding, the defence sector agreed to immediately release 10 MHz spectrum for the 3G services and 5 MHz for the 2G services. The remaining spectrum would be released in a phased manner. Defence will release a total of 25 MHz for 3G and 20 MHz of 2G spectrum.
Spectrum is a scarce resource that is required to operate telecom services and one of the reasons for delay in 3G services by the private companies has been the disagreement regarding vacation of spectrum between defence and department of telecommunications. However, no that the defence has agreed to vacate spectrum; telecom industry may look forward to an earlier schedule fro the spectrum auction.