Telcos make beeline to participate in 2G auction

Auction closes at 5pm today, RCom, Reliance have not filed as yet

Incumbent operators, which include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and  TTSL, and new operators such as Telewings (the new company of Telenor) and Videocon, whose licences were cancelled  as a result of the Supreme court order, are believed to have put in their applications for participating in the upcoming 2G auction.

Today is the last day of filing application which ends at 5pm. Those who have not filed their applications till now include Reliance Communications and Reliance Industries, apart from Aircel. Aircel might file an application as it requires some additional spectrum in Assam.     

The Union Cabinet had fixed the  auction base price at Rs 14,000 crore for five MHz — 22 per cent lower than sector regulator Trai’s recommendation of Rs 18,000 crore. The base price for 800-MHz spectrum used by CDMA operators has been fixed at 1.3 times that of the 2G spectrum in 1,800 MHz. GSM operators had however opposed the high base price saying that this would lead to an increase in tariffs for customers of an average of 64 paisa per minute and jeapordise the industry.  

In the 1800 Mhz band eight blocks of 1.25 MHz band would be auctioned. However there is provision for two new operators to get a block of 5 MHz and three existing operators will get 1.25 MHz each  making the total to 13.75 Mhz.  
 
The Government hopes to get over Rs 40,000 crore from the auction of spectrum as well as the one time fee which could go a long way in reducing their fiscal deficit.