This heats up the old arch rivalry between GSM and CDMA operators on spectrum issue. Though this study is not good enough to comment on, as TRAI did not specify any time period for VLR, but it shows Airtel, Vodafone and Idea has more than 75% active subscribers in their network compared to Reliance has 66% and Tata Teleservices (TTSL) has 45% – below than 70% of total active subscribers, based on September 2010 data
Following this, COAI – the lobby of GSM operators (mostly Airtel, Idea and Vodafone) hit back AUSPI (union of CDMA operators, face of TTSL and RCom) saying as they have more active customers and thus need of spectrum for them is logical and they do not hold extra spectrum as TTSL accused them. Note that existing policy gives a maximum of 15 MHz of airwaves per circle to GSM players; while the limit for CDMA players is 7.5 MHz.
Recently TDSAT rejects TTSL’s appeal for taking back extra airwaves from GSM players.CDMA had helped mobiles to reach masses of India via Reliance India Mobile, but now CDMA is not first choice of India, as it is said. But fact is it also could be GSM, if Mukhesh Ambani led Reliance Infocomm chose it.
CDMA got mass acceptance due to operator’s marketing strategy in a GSM-predominant market. At the same time CDMA gave them some advantages also like efficient spectrum use, greater coverage area, superior voice quality and security than GSM. Reliance Infocomm pioneered in pushing mobiles to masses, the whole thing turns better when lifetime prepaid validity comes, multi SIM handsets launched and new operators bring rock bottom tariff.
