“700 MHz and 2500 Mhz saw no bids today. The auction will resume tomorrow morning at 10 AM,” Prasad told reporters.
Leaving aside the 700 MHZ and 2500 MHz bands, 60% of the spectrum in the other five bands put on sale was sold, said Prasad, adding that the 2300 MHz band saw the most action.
India is auctioning 2,251.25 megahertz (MHz) of 4G airwaves valued at Rs 3.92 lakh crore up at base price. On sale are seven bands – 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz and 2500 MHz bands – with experts predicting that the government would net a maximum upto Rs50,000 crore, with Jio expected to be the most aggressive of the three and Vodafone Idea the least.
The current auction does not include frequencies in 3,300-3,600 Mhz bands that were identified for 5G services, which will happen later.
Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea had submitted a total earnest money deposit (EMD) of Rs 13,475 crore for the spectrum auctions. Reliance Jio, a networth of Rs 1.79 lakh crore, had submitted EMD of Rs 10,000 crore for the auctions, the highest among the three private telcos. Bharti Airtel with a networth of Rs 71,303 crore has submitted EMD of Rs 3,000 crore and Vodafone Idea with a negative networth of Rs 43,474 crore has submitted EMD of Rs 475 crore.
