A long-term spectrum roadmap can play a crucial role in providing mobile operators with the certainty needed to plan their investments strategically, experts said yesterday.

Ashish Garg, senior spectrum & policy manager, South Asia for the GSMA, said a spectrum roadmap for at least 10 years would provide necessary assurances to mobile operators.

The GSMA is a global organisation representing mobile operators and organisations across the mobile ecosystem and adjacent industries.

He was speaking on the second day of the three-day "24th South Asian Telecommunication Regulators Council (SATRC-24) Meeting" at Le Meridien Dhaka yesterday.

Garg said four guiding factors needed to be followed by regulators in the South Asian region, including the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC), when framing a spectrum policy and management framework.

The first is selecting the right spectrum with a mix of all ranges, including low bands, mid bands and high bands, to support a variety of applications and use cases.

The second is making it available when it is needed since delays will also delay the socio-economic benefits.

The third is that pricing must be reasonable and affordable so that operators can invest more in creating world-class telecom networks. Governments should not be looking at short-term revenue but at secondary and tertiary benefits to the overall economy.

The final guiding factor is setting the right terms and conditions, including rollout obligations, service and technology neutrality and spectrum validity and renewal.

During the event, GSMA also requested BTRC and other regulators to adopt open and transparent public consultations with all stakeholders before framing any policy.

Garg added that 5G had been gaining momentum across Asia Pacific.

"From now to 2030, 5G adoption will rise nearly 6x to 41 percent. In South Asia and Southeast Asia, 4G still has significant room to grow and will remain the dominant technology. Both 4G and 5G will coexist well into the 2030s," he added.

Approximately 100 delegates, including the heads of telecommunication and information technology regulatory bodies of nine member countries in South Asia, telecom operators, telecom and information technology experts and officials from public and private organisations are participating in the three-day event.

The conference was organised by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT) under the supervision of the Posts and Telecommunications Division, Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology.

SATRC was established with a combination of telecommunication regulatory bodies of South Asia. This forum sets policies on spectrum coordination, standardisation, regulatory trends, telecommunication development strategies, regional cooperation and international issues in the field of telecommunications.