The Ministry of Defence has sought CDMA spectrum in 12 telecom circles across 17 states, for the army’s communication purposes. These states are Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh and the six northeastern states.

The Ministry of Communications and IT is of the view that on assigning the spectrum to the defence forces, only 10 MHz of spectrum will be left for the upcoming spectrum auction. Therefore, the ministry is planning to assign CDMA spectrum to defence only in Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Northeast circles only.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has proposed to put 57.5 MHz of CDMA spectrum for auctions scheduled to be conducted in first half of 2015. Currently, the CDMA spectrum is used by Sistema Shyam TeleServices Limited, Reliance Communications, Tata Teleservices Limited and Quadrant Televentures.