Trai issues consultation paper for FM Radio

NEW DELHI: With A and A+ cities demanding more FM channel even after the announcement of the Phase III guidelines, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has sought the opinion of stakeholders whether it would be acceptable if the minimum channel spacing within a license service area can reduced from the current level of 800 KHz.

It has said that if it can be reduced, then stakeholders should suggest what the minimum level should be, justifying their answers with reasoning.

Issues such as the viability and desirability of having more number of channels in the interest of the stakeholders, selectivity of FM receivers available with the consumers (such as mobile handsets, car radios, and other receivers), transmission from a single or multiple transmission setups may please be factored in should also be considered.

In a consultation paper on "Issues related to prescribing minimum Channel spacing, within a license service area, in FM Radio sector in India", Trai has asked stakeholders to consider the implications of reducing/not-reducing the minimum channel spacing within a license service area. Furthermore, should the reduction of minimum channel spacing be confined to A+ and A category cities or should it be reduced across the country, and how should funding for the modification of transmitting setups be funded.

Stakeholders have been asked to send in their written comments by 26 December and counter-comments by 2 January 2012.

The Paper says that a second solution suggested by the operators requires a separate common transmission infrastructure (CTI) which includes transmitting tower, combiners, feeder cable, transmitting antenna etc. Effectively there would be two CTIs, one existing and another new one.

The combiner designed for 800 KHz spacing could be used as the channel separation within a CTI would remain 800 KHz. However, suitably choosing the new channel frequencies (having channel separation of 800 KHz) in between the existing channel frequencies radiated from the existing CTI (also having channel separation of 800 KHz), would effectively result in channels spaced at 400 KHz for the license area for which these two CTIs are meant.

Trai has pointed out that after the policy for Phase III was declared for 839 new private FM channels in 294 cities in July, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry had asked the regulator to study the issue of reducing channel spacing in view of the demand from operators in A+ and A cities which have already been covered in the first two phases.

The consultation paper analyses the issue of minimum channel spacing among the FM channels in light of the factors such as selectivity of the FM radio receivers, capability of combiners to effectively combine closely spaced channels, multiplicity of transmitting sites within the service area, mode of funding in case of up-gradation/creation of transmission setups is required.