Spectrum: Day one auction comes to an end

The auctions for telecom spectrum or airwaves for the 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2100 megahertz (MHz) bands that began Wednesday morning with eight companies in the fray ended for the day in the evening.

Eight telecom service providers - Reliance Communications, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Tata Teleservices, Uninor, Idea Cellular and Aircel - are participating in the bidding process.

The auction is taking place between between 9 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. Monday to Saturday.

The other telecom operators who are not participating in the auction are Sistema Shyam TeleServices Ltd, which provides services under the brand name MTS, Videocon Telecom and state-owned BSNL and MTNL.

The total spectrum put to auction is 103.75 MHz in 800 MHz band, 177.8 MHz in 900 MHz band and 99.2 MHz in 1,800 MHz band - a total of 380.75 MHz in 800, 900 and 1,800 MHz.

The government will also put on sale 5 MHz in the 2,100 MHz band, which is used for 3G services in 17 out of 22 telecom areas.