Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), an industry body representing GSM operators such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, has requested the government to free up spectrum in the L-band.

The L-band, with frequencies between 1427 MHz and 1518 MHz, is currently with the armed forces; however, a huge quantum of this spectrum is currently lying unutilised. COAI is of the view that the government should consider releasing this unused spectrum to operators to help them increase speeds of 3G and 4G services in the wake of growing data usage.

In a letter addressed to Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Minister of Communications and IT, COAI, has pointed out, “The L-band is largely unused or underutilised and identifying it for mobile broadband services (such as 3G and 4G) would provide an excellent opportunity to deliver high-quality broadband, especially in the rural areas in line with Digital India goals.”