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Indian 3G Auction Reaches Climax
(29 Apr 2010, BWCS Staff)At last, the long trumpeted auction of 3G licences in India appears to be nearing a close. According to the country's telecoms minister, Andimuthu Raja, the sale should be completed in "one or two days". According to government data, bids for one set of national 3G mobile spectrum licences have already surpassed Rs89.14 billion (US$2 billion). This is well over double the original base price. It is not clear how much higher the bidding will go.
Back in March of this year the government received nine applications to participate in the sale of 3G spectrum, with a further eleven parties interested in the Broadband Wireless licence sale. The 3G hopefuls are: Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Etisalat, Idea Cellular, Reliance Telecom, S Tel, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone Essar, and Videocon Telecommunications.
Meanwhile the applicants for BWA spectrum included Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Infotel Broadband Services, Reliance WiMax, ISP Spice, Tata Communications Internet Services and Vodafone Essar. In February of this year, Qualcomm also indicated its intention to enter the race for the BWA licence and it joined the impressive array of runners and riders at the start. The US-based mobile chip-maker says that, if successful, it will use the chunk of spectrum to roll out TD-LTE services. These, it says, are compatible with 3G WCDMA/HSPA and EV-DO network.
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