Monday 27 February 2017

All about the Spectrum and Spectrum Trading Policy and its effect

he Union Government has also approved the Spectrum Trading Guidelines for the Telecom Industry to avoid and eliminate Call drops and better service can be given. It also efficiently uses the un-utilized spectrum available to the service providers.
What is Spectrum?

It is a range of all lights of various wavelength. You might have done an experiment in your school where you have to pass light through a prism where different wavelength comes out. Hence, the Spectrum can be defined as the different range of frequencies of Electromagnetic radiation. There are several EM spectrum such as Ultraviolet light, X-rays, Infrared rays, Visible light and the important one is Radio-wave.

The Radio-wave spectrum, ranges from 3KHz to 300GHz, is used for communication and data transmission. 
How is Spectrum Auction done in India?

Out of these ranges of radiowaves, the government of India has selected two- 900MHz and 1800MHz to be auctioned to Telecom companies for 2G,3G & 4G technologies. The higher frequency, the more data can be transmitted. So, with the coming up of new technologies, more spectrum of higher frequency will be needed. This means that the government is managing the spectrum by selling it.
When it comes to auction, the government splits each frequency into circles and further, divides it to various users for communication. 

The present auction is being conducted online and is termed as a Simultaneous Multiple Rounds Ascending (SMRA) e-auction, by giving away 403.2 MHz in the 1,800 MHz band and 46 MHz in the 900 MHz band. The license for spectrum will be valid for 20 years. 

This is done in 2 stages – Clock stage and Frequency Identification Stage. In the Clock stage, bidding process starts for the area to be auctioned. Bidders will be informed about the Clock Round Price per block for each of the service areas in both the bands where spectrum is put to auction. And, the second stage will identify specific frequency blocks for the winning bidders. Auctions on both the spectrum bands are being conducted simultaneously. If the bidders finalize the bid, he then has to select the number of blocks in the area such as 1800 MHZ blocks of 200 KHz while in 900 MHz each block size is of 1 MHz.  

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