Major telcos submit bids for October 1 spectrum auction

The seven operators include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Reliance Jio, RCom, Aircel and Tata Teleservices

A majority of telecom operators in the country have submitted their applications to participate in the biggest-ever spectrum auction - scheduled to start from October 1 - barring Telenor, which decided not to bid in the sale.

The seven operators include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Reliance Jio, Reliance Communications (RCom), Aircel and Tata Teleservices. However, the auction will not see participation from any new player. State-run telecom operators - BSNL and MTNL –have not submitted their bids, as was the practice in past auctions.

RCom and Aircel have submitted separate bids even though the two companies announced their merger on Wednesday.

All the major players submitting their applications is indicative of a positive sentiment about the auction in the industry, said an official in the department of telecommunications (DoT).

The government, placing around 2,354.55 megahertz of spectrum on the auction block, hopes to garner around Rs 5.66 lakh crore, provided all the airwaves are sold at the base price. Norway-based Telenor had announced earlier it would not be participating in the auction. Hence, its absence has not come as a surprise to the DoT. The latest spectrum auction should help remove fragmentation and improve quality of services. Also, the rules have been made as bidder-friendly as possible. For this, the government has taken several steps, which include its plans to assign spectrum won in the auction within 30 calendar days from date of making the payment. Also, the spectrum usage charge has been set at three per cent for new spectrum being auctioned, which is lower than the prescribed five per cent in 2015.

Other changes and differences in the area of ease of improving business and making the auction more bidder-friendly are for those bidders whose net-worth is taken into consideration. As part of the eligibility, the lock-in period will now be one year instead of the previous auction, which was two years beyond the roll-out obligation. Instead of seven years, the lock-in period of equity has been reduced to a year.
EXPANDING HORIZONS

• The government will start the mega airwave auction on October 1, in which mobile frequencies in all bands — 700 Mhz, 800 Mhz, 900 Mhz, 1,800 Mhz, 2,100 Mhz and 2,300 Mhz — will be put on the block
   
• The finance ministry in the Budget pegged the revenue at Rs 98,995 crore from the telecom space, which includes Rs 64,000 crore from the auction of about 2,354.55 Mhz of spectrum and the rest from various levies and services in FY17
   
• All the radiowaves being put up for auction can be used for high-speed 4G services