Days after top CDMA operator Reliance stunned everybody by switching sides to GSM technology, the biggest mobile operator Bharti Airtel said that CDMA is on its way out in India and that the country’s spectrum policy needs to stay in tune with the big, globally harmonised spectrum rules.

‘‘CDMA is dying by the day. Even in Korea and the US, there is a steady shift to GSM,’’ Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel Ltd, told The Indian Express on Friday.

Mittal said that worldwide, GSM operators are migrating to W-CDMA technology while CDMA operators are switching to GSM. He said that if the US players T-Mobile and Cingular can switch sides from CDMA, it sends a ‘‘very big signal’’ to spectrum policymakers about where technology is headed.

‘‘W-CDMA is a kind of CDMA that is used by GSM players to provide 3G services. But CDMA is a closed technology for which heavy royalties have to be paid, so the CDMA people are moving to GSM, an open technology,’’ Mittal said.

He added that W-CDMA is becoming popular with telecom operators worldwide because Qualcomm, which developed CDMA technology, charges significantly lower royalties for W-CDMA than it does for CDMA. ‘‘The significantly lower royalties for W-CDMA definitely play on operators’ minds,’’ Mittal said.

In such a scenario, while Reliance’s adoption of GSM does give Bharti another major competitor on its own turf, it may bring the two warring sides together on the controversial spectrum allocation rules. Indian CDMA players want the government to give them spectrum in the 1900 MHz band where they can provide 3G services. But GSM operators want to keep them out of this band because of interference concerns.

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