The government has received cumulative commitments of Rs 63,500 crore from telecom operators at the end of fourth day of spectrum auction. The additional amount raised on the fourth day was just Rs 2,531 crore and there were six fresh rounds of bidding with the total rounds now standing at 23.
According to data of Telecom Department, there is no demand yet for frequencies in 700 MHz and 900 MHz bands, while bidding interest has been seen largely around 1800 MHz and 2300 MHz that can be used by operators to provide 4G services. During the bidding on day 4, in 800 MHz, there were bids in four circles but the price increase over the reserve price was only in Rajasthan and Punjab and in 1800 MHz, there were bids in all 22 circles but the price increase was seen in only two circles, Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh (east).
On the first day of bidding telecom spectrum auctions fetched Rs 53,531 crore, Rs 56,792 crore on second day and at the end of third day of bidding Rs 59,981 crore . As much as 2,354.55 MHz of frequencies valued at Rs 5.63 lakh crore at the base price have been put up for auction across seven bands.
As per the bid document, the duration of each bidding round is reduced when the number of slots put up for auction, falls below 10 slots. The government had put up 126 slots on the offer in the current spectrum auction, which was touted to be as the largest spectrum auction ever. The government has fixed a pan-India reserve price of Rs 2,873 crore per MHz for spectrum in 1,800 MHz band; Rs 3,341 crore for 900 MHz; Rs 5,819 crore for 800 MHz; Rs 3,746 crore for 2,100 MHz; Rs 11,485 crore for 700 MHz and Rs 817 crore each for 2,300 MHz and 2,500 MHz bands.