The Indian Department of Telecommunications reports the government has completed 3G auctioning. Nine cellular firms, including Indian market leaders Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications, had participated in more than 180 rounds of bidding over 34 days. The Indian government is likely to earn 509.6 billion rupees (US$11 billion) from the auction.
All of the country’s 22 service areas received bids. Three bandwidth slots for 3G services in each of 17 telecom service areas and four in each of the remaining five areas were auctioned off.
The price for one slot of bandwidth to offer 3G mobile services across India: US$3.70 billion (INR 165 Billion), the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) spokesman Satyendra Prakash told the Wall Street Journal.
Subject to approval by the government (which may come as soon as tomorrow), Aircel, Reliance and Bharti appear to be the biggest winners, each gaining spectrum in 13 circles. Idea has provisionally won spectrum in 11 circles, while Tata and Vodafone won spectrum in nine circles. No single operator appears to have gained 3G access to all of the country’s circles.
The successful bidders will be able to offer 3G services on a commercial basis from Sept. 1. One slot in each service area was allotted ahead of the auction to government-owned service providers, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL). These companies will be required to pay license fees equal to the highest bid in each service area, DOT said last year.
The win did not come cheap for telecom companies that are already facing an intense competition in India. Bharti will have to pay 3.22 times its FY10 revenues for winning 13 circles while Idea has to shell out 2.15 times its FY10 revenues for 11 circles.
The $11 billion raised by the 3G auction compares with more than $35 billion raised in the 2000 UK spectrum auction, while Germany collected about $67 billion from its UMTS licence auctions. In 2008, the United States raised $18 billion from their 700 MHz spectrum auction.
China, the world’s biggest telecoms market, took a long-delayed 3G plunge last year by awarding licences to the country’s top-three phone operators.
There are currently nearly half a billion mobile phone subscribers in India, but nearly all are using 2G service. Only a small fraction of the population has access to the Internet.
Now that the 3G auction is over for paired 2.1 GHz spectrum, the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum auction at 2.3 GHz will began. For BWA there are 11 operators bidding and the base price has been fixed at Rs 1,750 crore and only two slots are available.
India plans to auction two 20 MHz unpaired blocks at 2.3 GHz in each of the country’s 22 service areas for 4G (LTE or WiMAX). The base price for a pan-India spectrum slot is set at $386 million.
Qualcomm filed an application to bid in India’s broadband wireless auction in the 2.3 GHz band. Qualcomm plans to use the TD-LTE standard in the world’s second most populous country. Qualcomm’s technology will support both TD-LTE and 3G/2G. A winning bid would turn Qualcomm into a joint venture partner. Qualcomm would find an Indian partner if it succeeds in the auction, as per telecommunications rules in India.
Motorola hopes to use WiMAX in India, and is in talks with top cellular service providers for deployment. Motorola claims that it can offer 30 – 40 per cent cheaper solutions. Motorola has deployed over 38 WiMAX networks worldwide.
At the height of the tech bubble in 2000, telecom operators fell over themselves to snap up 3G licenses. Now 4G frequencies are hot.
Europe’s first 4G auction began in Germany last month and will end shortly. German regulator Bundesnetzagentur plans to auction off around 340 MHz of prime spectrum that can be used for LTE (or WiMAX). Spectrum in the 1.8 GHz, 2 GHz, and 2.6 GHz bands, as well as 72 MHz of the so-called digital dividend spectrum in the 790 to 862 MHz frequency band is being auctioned right now. Germany’s T-Mobile and Britain’s Vodafone are expected to be bidding on German 4G frequencies, bringing the government an estimated 5-10 billion euros.
Related Dailywireless articles include; Auctions Winding Down in Germany & India, Germany 4G Auctions Begin, Europe to Follow, India: World’s Best Broadband Deal?, Indian 3g/4g Auction: Qualcomm Bidding TD-LTE, India’s 3g/4G Auction: On the Move , India: Auction is On, India Sets 3G Auction Price Higher, WiMax: East Meets West, China Mobile: Slow TD-SCDMA Sales.
