National Security Advisor Examining Spectrum Issue : Pallam Raju
The National Security Advisor (NSA) is presently examining all pros and cons of joint recommendations made by Defence, Communication & IT Ministries before release of Spectrum so that the issue of national security is not at all compromised.
Disclosing this at ASSOCHAM organized Conference on `WiMAX : Driver for Broadband in India’ here today, the Minister of State for Defence, Mr. M.M. Pallam Raju said that after the Ministry receives NSA’s observations, a decision on spectrum allocations would be taken accordingly.
The Minister clarified that delays in spectrum allocations to Indian Inc. have taken place as the government could not evolve an alternate communication networking system for its armed forces, as it has legacy of equipments which were not Spectrum friendly.
“Now that the alternate advance telecom system is being restored for the Defence and armed forces, spectrum release should not be a problem and a decision for release of spectrum would shortly be taken”, said the Minister without committing a particular deadline for it.
“It is because of this reason that the National Security Advisor is examining the issue with this angle in consultation with Ministry of Communication & IT which will take little more time and the issue of spectrum allocations would be sorted out for good”, said the Minister.
The Minister, however, did not make any commitment that the spectrum allocations would be accomplished by the end of current calendar year, barring saying that the issue would be resolved as soon as possible.
Mr. Pallam Raju said that the UPA government would try its best to adopt WiMAX technologies for urban rural connectivity as it is the most cost effective as compared to other technologies.
According to the Minister, wireless and mobile technologies have proven to be a blessing to India helping it leapfrog technologies and infrastructural constraints in her quest for connectivity and communications. These technologies have become the most convenient mode of access as they offer quick Go to Market models due to lesser and faster infrastructure build out cycle times as compared to Fiber or Copper based access, pointed out the Minister.
“Our voice networks have expanded at great speed touching a figure of 275 million subscribers today with about two-thirds of them having been added within the last 3 years. We are now the second largest cellular wireless country in the world and it is expected that the subscriber/base would reach over 400 million by 2010. The indispensability and the value addition that wireless and the mobile phone revolution have brought to society are very obvious”, said the Minister.
“An equally important feature of mobile internet is of course broadband wireless access. Fourth generation technology such as WiMAX are apparently ready to roll out mobile internet. Over 300 WiMAX networks too are apparently being built worldwide such as Sprint-Clearwire which is supposedly the largest such network today. India has not yet allocated the spectrum but government is trying to make this happen soon”, clarified the Minister.
