Telecom companies have put in bids worth Rs 58,332 crore (Rs 583.32 billion) in spectrum auction at the end of 49 rounds on the 7th day of bidding on Monday.
The auction started off with the 36th round this morning. At the end of 35 rounds on Friday, bids worth around Rs 54,600 crore had been received by the government.
The call drop rate should not be more than 2 per cent and for worst affected cells it should not be more than 3 per cent.
The big beneficiaries of this move will be the big three -- Bharti, Vodafone and Idea.
Its says reconsider lower reserve price, uniform usage charges; GSM players to bear the brunt.
Telecom subscriber base crossed the 95-crore mark in August, after a gap of more than two years, on the back of higher mobile users whose number touched 92.43 crore.
While smart boys like the Ruias of Essar, Ajay Piramal, Max India promoter Analjit Singh laughed all the way to the bank, the Tatas, Anil Ambani, Malaysian tycoon T Ananda Krishna of Maxis (which invested in Aircel), Sistema, and Norway's Telenor burnt their fingers, notes Surajeet Das Gupta.
The telecom spectrum auction entered the 33rd round of bidding today after starting off from the Rs 52,689 crore (Rs 526. 89 billion) mark this morning.
Govt is set to garner Rs 1 lakh crore from sale of radiowaves.
The amount generated so far is about 86 per cent of what the 3G auction fetched in 2010.
The third round of spectrum auction continued to witness aggressive bidding even after completion of seventeen rounds on Wednesday with demands for both bands of airwaves on offer continuing to pour in.
Airtel, Vodafone, BSNL increase subscriber share while Idea manages to retain
Spectrum auction took off on Wednesday from Rs 58,980.29 crore (Rs 589.80 billion) mark with demand for the premium 900 Mhz band seemingly tapering off at the end of 56 rounds.
Chinese telcos hold 60-100 MHz of spectrum, while Indian companies hold 13-15 MHz of spectrum.
Of the two big players, while Bharti Airtel can leverage its existing subscriber base, newcomer Reliance Jio will have to wean away subscribers from the incumbents
Jio's disruptive strategy, including free voice services and data at throwaway rates, apart from offering all services free for six months, triggered a consolidation in the telecom sector.
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