“No auction of spectrum where it is not possible”

According to telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday, the government is allocating spectrum via auctions, with the exception of some products or situations where bidding is not practical.

The Department of Telecommunications petitioned the Supreme Court to determine whether it may allot satellite spectrum for satellite communications in the nation, and the minister’s remark came after. “We are quite certain that almost every spectrum will be sold at auction, with the exception of certain, strictly defined items for which auctioning is not practical,” the minister said.

The minister also used the country’s impending spectrum auction, which is scheduled for the first week of June 2024, as an example.

The government had petitioned the court to get clarity on the distribution of spectrum to businesses, just prior to the Telecommunications Act being approved by the legislature. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) asked for an urgent hearing on the issue on Monday.

The Department of Transportation’s appeal follows a 2012 Supreme Court ruling and a Presidential referral that mandated competitive auctions for the allocation of naturally occurring, publicly owned resources like spectrum. However, auctions of spectrum for terrestrial networks are required under the Telecommunications Act of 2023, which was approved in December 2023.

Space telecommunications service providers like Elon Musk’s Starlink, Bharti Airtel’s OneWeb, and Amazon’s Project Kuiper would benefit greatly from the allocation method as it allows them to secure spectrum without having to go through an auction procedure.

The government asked the court in its petition to provide the necessary explanations so that, if spectrum assignment is decided via an administrative procedure in compliance with the law, the government may contemplate doing so. If the assignment benefits the public interest, the government, or if auctions are not the best option for technical or financial reasons, it will be pursued.