After just three days of bidding, there have been combined bids of Rs12,296 crore (US$2.6bn) for rights to the nation’s wireless broadband spectrum.
The pace of the auction for broadband wireless access (BWA) is much faster than the recently wrapped-up…
After just three days of bidding, there have been combined bids of Rs12,296 crore (US$2.6bn) for rights to the nation’s wireless broadband spectrum.
The pace of the auction for broadband wireless access (BWA) is much faster than the recently wrapped-up sale of 3G licences. After 16 rounds of bidding the price for a single pan-India slot of wireless spectrum has risen 139% above the base price of Rs1750 crore to Rs4183.82 crore, while it took 14 days for the mobile auction to reach this pitch.
The 11 companies competing for the 22 regional circles of BWA, including Vodafone, Qualcomm, Tata and Reliance, are not expected to keep up this pace, which would see it overtake the price paid for 3G. Already there has been less than par demand for eight of the circles.
Such has been the demand for these recent government auctions that the Reserve Bank of India has been moved to open a second withdrawals window to allow banks to draw additional funds to meet the expected cash demand from telecoms companies.
