AMN / WEB DESK
Union Minister for Communications, Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw on Monday said that the 5G allocation will be made by August 10 and services are expected to be rolled out from October. “With better availability of the spectrum, call quality is expected to improve,” he added.
The government had put on offer spectrum in 10 bands but received no bids for airwaves in 600 MHz.
About two-thirds of the bids were for the 5G bands (3300Mhz and 26Ghz), while more than a quarter of the demand came in the 700 Mhz band — that had gone unsold in the previous two auctions (2016 and 2021).
Spectrum received record Rs 1.5 lakh crore of bids
India’s biggest ever auction of telecom spectrum received a record Rs 1.5 lakh crore of bids, with Mukesh Ambani’s Jio cornering nearly half of all the airwaves sold with a Rs 88,078 crore bid.
Richest Indian Gautam Adani’s group, whose entry in the auction was billed by some as another flashpoint in the rivalry with Ambani, paid Rs 212 crore for 400 MHz, or less than 1 per cent of all spectrum sold, in a band that is not used for offering public telephony services.
Telecom tycoon Sunil Bharti Mittal’s Bharti Airtel made a successful bid of Rs 43,084 crore, while Vodafone Idea Ltd bought spectrum for Rs 18,799 crore.
Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said of the 72,098 MHz of spectrum offered across 10 bands, 51,236 MHz, or 71 per cent, was sold.
The auctions and spectrum top-up by companies will pave the way for better quality of services for consumers across the country, he added.