Government policies create and shape business models, make no mistake. One new example is the Indian Department of Communications decision on prices mobile operators must pay when trading or sharing spectrum.
At issue are prices related to trading or sharing both 800-MHz and 1800-MHz spectrum, which the DoT says will be set by March 2015 auction prices.
That might seem logical enough, except that competitors had argued the prices for trading 800-MHz should be set at higher levels.
That effectively reduces the prices Reliance Jio Infocomm and Reliance Communications would pay if they share or trade spectrum.
The reason is that the only operators using 800 MHz are Reliance Communications and Tata Tele.
“In case more than one set of auction determined prices are available, the latest auction determined prices for the respective frequency band as available at the time of calculation of charges/amount payable for liberalization of spectrum, would be applied,” the DoT said.
