3G auction...mad rush among incumbent players

Telecoms majors like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar and RCOM submitted applications for the long overdue third-generation (3G) mobile spectrum in an April auction. These companies submitted bids for all of India's 22 telecoms zones. Abu Dhabi-based Etisalat, which has a telecoms joint venture in India, also applied for the 3G spectrum bid, while reports said that Tata Teleservices, India's fifth-ranked mobile firm and 26% owned by NTT DoCoMo, submitted its interest to bid on Thursday. Reports also said that Videocon has also put in a bid for 3G spectrum, while Uninor (a JV between Telenor and Unitech) decided not to joint the mad rush as did a spate of big global names.

Tata Communications, Tikona Wireless and London-based Augere submitted applications for the forthcoming auction of spectrum for wireless broadband access (BWA). Qualcomm announced that it has filed an application to bid in the upcoming BWA auction in the 2.3 GHz band. Bharti, Vodafone and RCOM also expressed interest in BWA spectrum. The bidding for BWA spectrum is expected to be aggressive as only two blocks of spectrum are available across the 22 circles. Spectrum winners will not automatically get a unified licence or ISP licence on winning the bid. They will have to procure it by paying the necessary fees. BWA spectrum would attract a charge of 1% of annualised gross revenues from BWA services.

The 3G auction starts from April 9, and the BWA auction will kick off two days after that, the Government said last month. March 19 was the last date for submitting interest to participate in the auctions. Bidding for 3G would start from a government-fixed base price of Rs35bn (US$770mn) for all-India radio waves, but analysts expect companies to spend between US$1bn to US$1.5bn due to the huge demand for scarce spectrum and cut-throat competition. For all-India BWA spectrum, the base price is Rs17.5bn. In the Union Budget announced last month, the Centre has penciled in revenue projection of Rs350bn (US$7.7bn) from the twin auctions