Why are telecom companies keen on E and V spectrum bands?

There was a call for the telecom companies to auction the E and V spectrum bands, which are the subject of controversy, like another spectrum. Last week, these companies have also informed about this demand by writing a letter to Communications Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad through the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). He has said that adopting any other method will be legally unsustainable and destroy the perception of equal opportunity for all and this will also cause huge revenue loss to the government.

But Broadband India Forum (BIF), a platform of companies like Facebook, Google, and Qualcomm, has also strongly opposed it. They demand that this spectrum should be excluded from the purview of the license so that the path of crores of entrepreneurs who intend to install public Wi-Fi hotspots can be made easier. He says that with the passing of spectrum to telecom companies, the government's dream of installing more than 5 million Wi-Fi hotspots across the country this year and doubling it by 2023 will be destroyed. Currently, the number of Wi-Fi hotspots across the country is just over 3 lakh. The number of public hotspots will need to increase drastically to fulfill the dream of Digital India.

Due to the strong bandwidth in the E and V-band spectrum, they can send data on a large scale. But this work is possible only for a short distance. In the case of E-band, it can work up to 6 kilometers and in the case of V-band only up to 200 meters distance. When license-free, the V-band can provide a spectrum that has fewer interruptions than other unlicensed bands like the Wi-Fi routers currently in use. Why the hell is this noise? Why are telecom companies so eager to get these spectrum bands? We have to keep in mind that when this matter came up a few years ago, the new company Reliance Jio alone had demanded their auction. The already active operators wanted the E and V-bands to be associated with the spectrum they already had. The old operators were not in favor of auctioning both these spectrum bands. But the explosive growth of data consumption and the urgent need to increase the supply of broadband internet has changed the whole picture. With E and V-band in their possession, operators will be able to compensate for the space. These bands can be used to establish last-round connectivity (backhaul in technical terminology) between mobile towers. At present, only about 30 percent of the telecom towers are connected through fiber and it is estimated that telecom companies will have to invest around $ 3.5 billion to double this figure. It does not add to the laborious process of obtaining fiber laying clearance. In this context, E and V-band spectrum can be a cheap and easy option to bridge this gap.

But to ensure a reliable back hall, telecom companies will need a spectrum that is exclusively in their use. Especially for activities such as remote robotic surgery performed on 5G networks, spectrum with very short transmission delay will be necessary. They say that such works cannot be done with an unlicensed spectrum.

But the problem has been that the telecom regulator has not agreed to the claims of the telecom companies. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) had suggested implementing the fixed-fee system in the year 2014 instead of auctioning for the backhall spectrum. He is still standing on his stand. Former TRAI chairman RS Sharma openly rejected the demand of telecom companies, saying that the perception that their data wireless revenue from Wi-Fi hotspots would decrease is a result of short-term thinking. Despite this, the Telecom Ministry is yet to make up its mind on this issue.

BIF President TV Ramachandran says, "If these spectrum bands are not license-free, we will not be able to reach the ambitious goal of expanding Wi-Fi hotspots and high-speed broadband." After all, 70 countries including the US have kept these spectrums out of license and we too should follow this global trend. The BIF-led tech companies, while rejecting the pleas of telecom companies on E and V-band, say that as per the Supreme Court's 2012 judgment, all spectrum needs to be auctioned. A BIF official said that this order of the Supreme Court applies only to the 'access spectrum' i.e. the spectrum required to provide mobile connectivity to the consumer. But microwaves were also being used in backhaul or different spectrum bands under this arrangement. If all the spectrum is to be auctioned, then this backhaul spectrum should also be withdrawn and auctioned afresh.

According to the BIF, the V-band spectrum with its limited coverage can only be used indoors to enhance the existing 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz spectrum. Wi-Fi routers operate on the same spectrum to connect laptops, TVs, or Google Home Smart Voice. Apart from this, the same bands are also used to give better speed and connectivity of the internet to consumers.

A BIF official says, 'V band spectrum has no use in backhaul for telecom companies. They will need an E band for that. But they want every spectrum they own so that consumers will be deprived of better services. ' Broadband service providers estimate that the government will not get more than Rs 4,000 crore from the auction of this spectrum, but this is very little compared to the economic effects of the spread of Wi-Fi and high-speed internet. According to a study by the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, the use of these bands can increase GDP by 0.15 percent if the average internet speed increases by 50 percent. However, the opinion of the senior authority of a telecom company is different from this. He says, "In today's time, the E and V bands may have a lower price but with the technological advancement, a thick premium can be found on this spectrum.