Qualcomm joins the Spectrum war

QUALCOMM Incorporated, the poineer of CDMA digital wireless technology, joined the fight on behalf of its major users in India namely Reliance Infocomm Ltd and Tata Teleservices Ltd for allocation of spectrum based on equality. The company is convinced that the criteria adopted by the government to allocate additional spectrum is based on incorrect method and there are needs to correct it. India government is currently planning to give spectrum to GSM operators on the base of number of subscriber.
Kamwalinder Singh, President, Qualcomm India and SAARC, said, "The method of calculating only the net adds of subscribers to seek additional spectrum adopted by GSM operators leads to skewed figure of subscriber numbers. The correct and scientific method is to calculate it along with the existing cumulative subscriber numbers."
He added, "If subscriber based spectrum allocation is the basis then the criterion should be the same for CDMA and GSM operators."
He further said, "Economies of scale are reflected by handset additions which is always more than net subscriber addition."
The US technology major also said that GSM evolution to WCDMA is inevitable, since this would enable GSM operators to achive simmilar spectrum efficiency and revenue generating services as CDMA operaors. Hence, there should be equal spectrum charges for equal spectrum allocation. Singh also said, "Operators should be given flexibility to decide on a particular band to deploy a particular service in their allocated spectrum."
It must be noted that after intial allocation, the incremental spectrum alocation for CDMA has also been set half the amount allocated to GSM operators. This unequal allocation stifles competition and introduction and expansion of value-added services. Singh said that, it also created a disincentive for GSM operators to adopt technologies that could make their networks as efficient as CDMS ones.
He said that any criterion that goverment decided to adopt to allocate spectrum should take into account the technology and effciency it provides.