Aditya Birla group company Idea Cellular's [Get Quote] entry into the lucrative Mumbai circle has hit the spectrum roadblock as the telecom operator is yet to receive radio waves to start operations.

Not just Mumbai, the company's plans to roll out services in Bihar and Jharkhand has also been delayed due to the unavailability of spectrum.

"We got the licence in December last year for both the circles (Bihar and Jharkhand are treated as one circle). We hoped to start the services by July but so far no spectrum has been released. Once we get the spectrum, we will take about 3-4 months to put the network", company Vice-President (Corporate Affairs) Rajat Mukherjee said in New Delhi.

But this has not deterred the company's pan-Indian aspirations. "We have applications pending for nine more circles for unified access licence", he said.

Idea currently operates in 11 circles. Spectrum, the lifeline of mobile services, has been scarce for the wireless telephony as existing operators expand the subscriber base and new aspirants enter the sector.

The scarcity of spectrum has been a constant concern for Department of Telecom, which is negotiating with Defence for vacating spectrum under their occupation. At present there are already four leading mobile operator -- Bharti, Hutch, MTNL [Get Quote] and BPL in Mumbai circle.