The government on Monday decided to go for auction of the last available spectrum of 10MHz in 1800MHz in the current financial year. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has constituted an advisory committee for auction of this spectrum which is headed by Minister of State for Information Technology and Telecommunication Anusha Rahman while special assistant to PM for law, secretary IT, secretary finance, secretary law, chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), executive director Frequency Allocation Board (FAB) and member telecom are the members of this committee. The member telecom has also been appointed as secretary of the committee.
The first meeting of this auction advisory committee was held here on Monday chaired by Anusha Rahman. Chairman PTA Syed Ismail Shah apprised the committee of the consultant's report on market assessment for auction of spectrum. According to sources, the committee was informed that market is ready as per the consultant report and the government should opt for auction. Some telecom operators have expressed interest in procuring more spectrum but they have adopted wait-and-see policy. They would become open once the information of memorandum is made public. However, the sources said the 10MHz in 1800MHz would not be split in two blocks and the government goes for a single block auction. It would be better if the government splits it into blocks, industry sources added. The sources further said however the base price would be set in the upcoming meeting.
The government had budgeted Rs 65 billion from the auction of two licenses of 3G and 4G for 2015-16. However, later the government revised it to Rs 45 billion, while deciding to go for single frequency spectrum auction in the 850MHz band with base price of $395 million. One license (4G) remained unsold and the government has budgeted Rs 75 billion for the current financial year from its auction.
While chairing the meeting, the IT minister said the government was committed to conducting the third round of spectrum auction in most transparent and professional manner as were done earlier in 2014 and 2016 respectively. During last three years, the government has done two rounds of next generation spectrum (3G/4G) auction. The industry has witnessed an exponential growth as a result of these auctions. There has been a phenomenal increase in the number of subscribers of broadband user in telecom sector where the broadband density today is surpassing 27 percent.
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