The All India Census Report 2011 has already been published by the Government of India. According to the Census Report many C class cities which have crossed the five lakh population are eligible to be upgraded to B class with 20% HRA. Sahranpur is an example. Despite the issue was brought to the notice of the management, the orders have not been issued. It seems that the files are pending with the Director (HR). What we expect from the management is quick decisions, whether on developmental or staff matters. This undue delay has to be avoided if BSNL has to improve. I hope that the management will issue necessary orders in the case of not only Sahranpur but in other similar cases also.

Mobile companies will have to shell out significantly higher money for buying spectrum in future.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Monday suggested a base price that ranges between Rs 3,622 crore and Rs 14,480 per megahertz of airwaves. If these recommendations are accepted, the Government can hope to rake in at least Rs 7 lakh crore by 2014 by selling various chunks of spectrum bands.

The immediate impact of this will be on the new 2G players whose licences have been cancelled by the Supreme Court. These operators paid a total of Rs 1,650 crore for 4.4 Mhz of pan India spectrum in 2008. Now they will have to pay a minimum of Rs 16,000 crore for the same amount of spectrum.

The telecom regulator has suggested that auction for 2G spectrum should be done in a single phase open to all players, including incumbent players, which is contrary to what the new players wanted. But the TRAI has tried to strike a balance by suggesting that operators who already have maximum airwaves under the prescribed cap will not be able to buy more.

This will put the larger incumbent players like Airtel and Vodafone out of the race as they already have between 8 and 10 Mhz of spectrum in most key circles, which is the prescribed limit for GSM segment.

In order to make the payout less painful, the regulator has proposed to allow a two-year moratorium for auction winners with the option of paying 33 per cent of the bid amount initially and the balance over a 10- year period. The dampener however is that it has given the Government the freedom to impose a suitable interest rate in consultation with the Finance Ministry. TRAI said that spectrum should be sold in tranches of 1.25 Mhz with the operator allowed to acquire at least 5 Mhz in each circle.

For 700 Mhz band, the TRAI said that the auction can be held later in 2014 once the handset ecosystem develops. 700 Mhz band is used for offering Fourth Generation (4G) technology. The base price for this band has been pegged at Rs 14,480 crore per Mhz.

In 2010, the Government had fixed Rs 1,750 crore as the base price for 20 Mhz of broadband spectrum. Reliance Industries will stand to gain from this proposal as it can be the only pan Indian broadband player at least till 2014-15. This will hurt other players like Airtel who were looking to acquire more 4G broadband spectrum this year.

What will hurt the incumbent GSM players even more is that the TRAI has suggested immediate re-farming of 900 Mhz band. This frequency band is considered to be superior in terms of efficiency and capital investments.

At present this is being used by Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, which now the TRAI wants to take away once the initial licence expires (2014 onwards) and resell in the open market. Bharti’s total liability will be around Rs 30,000 crore in 2013-15 to retain existing spectrum.

Not surprisingly, telecom companies blasted the recommendations and said that if implemented it will impact affordability. (Report in the Business Lines)

The data released by the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the association of GSM providers, reveals that the three mobile operators, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular account for more than 80% of the new GSM connections. All other companies, including BSNL and MTNL have provided  less than 20%. The data indicates one more thing, that the above three companies maximum utilised the benefit of the SC judgement cancelling 122 telecom licences given during the period of Raja on First Come First Served (FCFS) basis.

What is the position of BSNL in the present juncture. As already mentioned in this blog earlier, its market share in all the three – landline, wireless and total – services have been going down. Even it could not take much advantage of the cancellation of 122 licences of the new entrants.

After continuous pressures and struggles on the part of the workers under the leadership of the Joint Action Committee, Advance Purchasing Orders (APC) have already been finalised by the Corporate office for 15 million mobiles, 22 lakh new instruments, adequate cables and drop wires. Tender for Broadband modems are yet to be finalised.

What is the problem for the field officers, CGM/GM etc. to order the equipments and start providing mobile connections and improving the services. They seem to be in sleeping mode. They have to be woken up and made to work so that more connections could be given and services improved.

Our workers have to immediately act and make the management to act.