30/03/2010 ( Source: http://beta.profit.ndtv.com )

All 9 telecom firms qualify for 3G auction

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) on Tuesday said all the nine companies, which have submitted their applications to participate in the auction of 3G spectrum, have qualified for the bidding process.

Nine telecom operators, including market leaders Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Aircel, Tata Teleservices, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications, have applied to participate in the 3G auction that would take place next week.

The government also said eleven telecom operators including Bharti Airtel, Aircel and Idea Cellular Vodafone have qualified for the bid for the bid of BWA spectrum indicating aggressive bidding for both types of airwaves.

The government has fixed Rs 3,500 crore as reserve price for pan-India 3G spectrum and Rs 1,750 crore for Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) services.

The auction for 3G spectrum begins on April 9 which will be followed by auction for BWA. Going by the reserve prices, the government will garner about Rs 20,000 crore. However, the bid price may go quite high as the number of operators in the fray far outweighs the number of slots available in both services.

The government will be selling spectrum to three players across the nation with the exception of a few states where four slots will be on offer.

According to the Notice Inviting Applications (the detailed guidelines), only Punjab, Bihar, West Bengal, HP and J&K will have four private players offering high-speed content download and broadband services (3G). For BWA, only two slots are on the block.

The 3G mobile services will allow high-speed content download and broadband services, while BWA operates on different technology platform known as Wimax and is a leading technology for wireless broadband services.