Indian CDMA lobby supports snubbed Chinese operators

The Indian CDMA lobby, AUSPI (Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India), has come out in support of Chinese vendors Huawei and ZTE in the wake of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI’s) decision not to include them in 2G spectrum meetings.
TRAI was supposed to have called the Chinese vendors for a meeting scheduled for June 5^th to discuss issues pertaining to the recently held 2G spectrum pricing and allocation, but did not.
Companies like Ericsson, NSN, Qualcomm and even academics from premier technology schools had been invited by TRAI.
AUSPI Secretary General, S C Khanna said, “We strongly oppose the discussions with selected telecom vendors like Nokia and Ericsson who are major telecom network equipment providers to the old GSM operators like Bharti, Vodafone and Idea and they may not be able to give any independent view of the issue under discussion — 2G pricing.
“Nokia and Ericsson have vested interest of supplying equipment to the old GSM operators and their presence as well as their views will create a feeling of discrimination because of their vested interest in the supply of equipment to the operators like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea,” AUSPI said.
A highly placed source in Huawei – speaking on condition of anonymity – told RCR that TRAI was biased towards GSM operators and that it was becoming a well-known fact.
Despite our repeated attempts to contact TRAI for comment, the organization refused to comment on the issue and remained tightlipped.