EGoM on telecom to meet on December 7

The Empowered Group of Ministers on telecom, is scheduled to meet on Friday to discuss a roadmap for spectrum that remained unsold in the recent auction.

"It's (the EGoM meeting) on Friday," sources in the Department of Telecommunication said.

The high-powered panel, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram, which was to discuss the roadmap for auction of unsold GSM spectrum in Delhi, Mumbai, Rajasthan and Karnataka, has been deferred twice last month.

The EGoM has

to decide on the reserve price that should be fixed for these service areas.

It also has to decide on CDMA spectrum which had no takers.

The recent auction of GSM spectrum attracted bids worth only Rs 9,407 crore (Rs 94.07 billion), as against minimum expected amount of Rs 28,000 crore (Rs 280 billion).

There is also a proposal to conduct an auction of 900 Mhz band in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata along with 1800 Mhz band but EGoM has to take final call on the proposal.

Telecom operators prefer 900 Mhz band as they need to deploy lower number of telecom towers compared to that in 1800 Mhz band.