The Indian government would be issuing detailed guidelines for spectrum sharing. It would also be announcing 'in principle' the approval to trade in airwaves before the next bandwidth auctions to be held. This would bring relief to the debt ridden telecommunications sector in India.

In its meeting last Thursday, the Telecom Commission had accepted the recommendations forwarded by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India last September 9. The recommendations include the outline of a framework to share airwaves by its operators before the auctions are undertaken. This was confirmed through the minutes of the meeting seen by the Economic Times. 

Another document reviewed by the newspaper was a DoT note, which indicated the government had planned to start bandwidth auctions fromm the 800MHz, 900MHz and 1800MHz bandwidths commencing on January 7,2014.

One of the changes to be imposed would be the prohibition for a telecom operator to sell spectrum back to the government or to another telecom operator. This would result in the forfeiture of the auction price paid for the exiting operator.