The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released revised set of recommendations on the reserve price of spectrum in the 800 MHz band. It has recommended a fresh reserve price of Rs 31.04 billion per MHz for the spectrum in the said band for the auctions scheduled for February 2015. The changed valuation of the spectrum prices has been made due to the change in the revenue mix of operators, which has indicated a higher contribution from data usage and therefore, TRAI has revised the reserve price upwards by 15 per cent. The reserve price for the spectrum in the 800 MHz band stood at Rs 18.20 billion during the auctions conducted in 2013. .

TRAI, however, has reiterated its recommendation that the entire spectrum available with DoT in the 800 MHz band should be put up for auction. It is of the view that the DoT should take back the entire spectrum in the 800 MHz band from Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited ( all circles except Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Northeast).

Further, TRAI has also reiterated its recommendation to make available atleast 5 MHz of contiguous spectrum in the 800 MHz band prior to the auction to allow new players to participate in the spectrum auctions in February 2015.

The reconsideration of the recommendations by TRAI has come after the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had sought clarifications on some of its previously submitted recommendations, in November 2014.