New Delhi: Telecom Engineering Centre, the technical wing of the DoT, is currently the centre of attention over its upcoming report on spectrum allocation and is understood to be in favour of increasing subscriber base for awarding additional radio waves.

Although TEC officials were tight-lipped over the report to be submitted to the Department of Telecom (DoT) on 30October, they said there was a case for tightening subscriber numbers for additional spectrum allocation.

However, they did not disclose whether the 2-6 times hike in user numbers, as suggested by telecom regulator TRAI and accepted already by DoT, would be incorporated in toto in the report.

There is a prima facie case for tightening the subscriber numbers but that would depend on the circle (metro, rural, tier-II cities) as demand for radio waves varies. In rural areas, for example, less spectrum is needed as subscribers are less and applications are less complex, a senior TEC official said.

Additional spectrum requirement depends on parameters like number of subscribers, the density of subscribers, morphology - urban, semi-urban, rural terrain, type of applications - voice, data, multimedia application, environment - type of mobility (fixed, pedestrian, vehicular) and the technology itself {2G (CDMA IS95A, GSM), 3G (WCDMA/CDMA2000), WiFi, WiMax}, the official said.

DoT has gone by the TRAI proposal of increasing subscribers number by 2-6 times for allocating additional spectrum beyond 4.4 MHz in case of GSM players and 2.5 Mhz for CDMA players.

GSM lobby group Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has challenged it in TDSAT saying the calculation of the industry regulator in arriving at the 2-6 times number of subscriber is erroneous and impratical.