NEW DELHI: Encouraged by the success of e-auction in the case of Doordarshan‘s direct-to-home, DD Direct Plus, the government is now finalising its policy for e-auctioning slots for mobile television.
The policy is being finalised on availability of adequate spectrum and resolution of other issues with the Department of Telecommunications which include nature of technology to be used for mobile television, license area, tenure of license, cross holding restrictions, FDI limits, contention regulation mechanism etc.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology has asked the Information and Broadcasting Ministry to expeditiously resolve all pending issues like identifying and allocation of spectrum for mobile operators, determining the service area of licences and number of service providers/licences in each service area etc. with the Telecommunications Department to finalise the policy for introduction of mobile television.
The policy will generally be based on the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).
Trai in January 2008 had recommended composite foreign investment limit including FDI of 74 per cent for mobile TV service while reiterating its earlier recommendations for a complete review of FDI policy relating to carriage aspects of electronic media as a whole so that it is consistent across all sectors.
The authority also recommended that foreign investments up to 49 percent may be permitted under the automatic route, beyond which FIPB approval will be required.
