“Certain quarters and incumbents with vested interests are attempting to derail this progressive development through irrational, misleading and misinformed claims for a level-playing field between the vastly different service domains of public networks and captive non-public networks,” the Broadband India Forum<\/a> (BIF<\/a>), said Friday.
The BIF counts big tech companies such as Tata Consultancy Services, Cisco, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook-owner Meta<\/a>, Qualcomm and Intel among its key members.
It added that it’s “highly irreverent to imply that a historic Cabinet decision permitting allocation of direct spectrum to private enterprises offers a backdoor entry for them to get 5G spectrum<\/a> and set up public\/consumer 5G networks\".
The BIF was countering the Cellular Operators Association of India’s call for a level playing field and the latter's worries that direct spectrum allotments for captive private networks would effectively give a backdoor entry to big tech players to provide 5G services and solutions to enterprises in India without equivalent regulatory compliance and payment of levies that TSPs are subjected to. The COAI<\/a> represents Bharti Airtel<\/a>, Reliance Jio<\/a> and Vodafone Idea<\/a> (Vi)
Both industry<\/a> bodies – COAI and BIF have lately been at loggerheads regarding the direct allocation of spectrum by the government to enterprises to set up captive non-public networks. The BIF has maintained that direct allocation would give enterprises the freedom to choose how they want to set up their captive networks and get into tie ups with technology companies of their choice, rather than being forced to tie up with operators. The COAI, in turn, counters that telcos are perfectly capable of providing captive network services at competitive rates and economically compared to private companies, and hence are opposed to direct airwave allocations.
T V Ramachandran, president of the BIF, said “it’s ludicrous that misleading and misinformed views are being propagated, demanding a level-playing field between two completely different sets of services, especially when the playing field is actually completely tilted in the favour of the telcos”.
This, he said, appeared to be an attempt to have a select group with vested interests decide and offer their services as per their wishes to enterprises, depriving them of the fundamental right to choice, for preferred service\/s as well as service providers. “The enterprises would then have to make do with whatever is offered by the TSPs, whether satisfactory or not.”
He added that the telcos' suggestion that captive private network operators should bid for spectrum in auctions is extremely irrational, given that their objective is to enhance efficiencies and not to use the spectrum to provide commercial public services.
The COAI, on its part, had noted on Thursday that companies wanting to use 5G spectrum for captive networks had also applied for open bidding of airwaves, which would ensure a level playing field is maintained and all interested parties bid for the spectrum required by them. It was alluding to Adani Data Networks, which has stated that it intends to use 5G spectrum acquired in the upcoming auction to provide private network solutions for its enterprise business across airports, ports & logistics, power generation, distribution, and manufacturing operations.
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