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New Delhi, Feb. 27: The government today granted telecom licences to Videocon’s Datacom Solutions, Aditya Birla’s Idea Cellular and Swan Communications, in which Reliance Communications has a minority stake.

However, until the defence department vacates spectrum, these companies can get the scarce resource only in the four telecom circles of Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Orissa and Tamil Nadu. “We do not have enough spectrum in the other telecom service areas as of now,” said officials in the department of telecommunications (DoT). “Only Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Orissa and Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) have sufficient spectrum to accommodate new players,” they said.

Spectrum, or radiowaves, over which mobile services travel, has been a bone of contention. A number of legal cases filed by telecom players challenging the DoT’s licensing and spectrum allocation policy are before the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) and Delhi High Court.

However, in a surprise move, Idea Cellular has decided not to press ahead with its petition before the TDSAT. The petition had sought a stay on the grant of licences and start-up spectrum to new players.

By the end of the week, the DoT will give around 120 licences to all the nine players who were granted letters of intent on January 10, paving the way for five new pan-India players. The five entities are real estate firm Unitech, Shyam Telelink, BPL Mobile subsidiary Loop Telecom, S Tel and Datacom.

Idea Cellular, which received a licence for a single circle, will get a unified access licence for the another eight circles in the future. Similarly, Swan Communications will receive the go ahead for another 13 circles, Tata Teleservices for three and Spice Telecom for four circles.

According to the current telecom policy, a licence holder is eligible to get start-up spectrum of 4.4 Mhz for each circle. According to the DoT’s wireless planning and co-ordination wing, about 45 MHz of spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band is available in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.