Eight telcos to compete in spectrum auction race

In the biggest ever spectrum auction that may fetch the government nearly Rs 1 lakh crore, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Reliance Communications, Aircel, Reliance Jio Infocom, Uninor and Tata Teleservices are the eight telecom companies which are competing to buy the second-generation or 2G and third-generation 3G radiowaves, as per a PTI report.

The auction is scheduled to start from March 4.

However, Sistema Shyam Teleservices Ltd (SSTL) cited high price and legal issues with the Department of Telecom (DoT) to opt out of the auction. SSTL is a potential buyer of CDMA spectrum, On the other hand, Gurgaon-headquartered Videocon Telecom did not submit its application to participate in the auction, a PTI report revealed.

Currently, most of the spectrum that is available for the auction is held by Idea Cellular, Vodafone, Reliance Telecom and Airtel, and their licences are expiring in 2015-16.

According to the PTI report, 9 circles of Mumbai-headquartered Idea Cellular, 7 circles each of Vodafone and Reliance Telecom, and 6 circles of Airtel are coming up for renewal. In total, there are 29 spectrum licences expire in 18 service areas in 2015-16.

If these telecom firm wish to continues offering their services to the customers, it is mandatory for them to bid for spectrum. So it would be interesting to see who gets what on March 4.
(Image: BCCL)