BWA spectrum bid too high: RCom, Tatas

Leading telecom players like RCom, Tatas, Vodafone and Idea Cellular failed to bag a single circle for broadband services, saying the BWA spectrum price was too high to make a viable business case.

Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications (RCom) said that it exited BWA auction a week ago after bid prices overshot its estimates.

The pan-India bid for BWA spectrum, auction for which ended on Friday, touched Rs 12,872.52 crore (Rs 128.72 billion) and Infotel, an Internet Service Provider, emerged the only winner for all the 22 circles.

Bharti Airtel, which bagged four circles, said, "A combination of scarcity of slots and the auction format, once again, resulted in extremely high price levels."

Echoing similar views, Vodafone said, "It is well positioned to offer high-speed data services to customers via its newly acquired 3G footprint and the existing networks. We decided to step away from the BWA auction when prices went beyond rational levels..."

The government has raised over Rs 38,300 crore (Rs 383 billion) from the 16-day-long auction for Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum, which closed today.

Expressing its disappointment, Tata Communications said that "the winning bids, in our opinion, are in excess of what current broadband business cases can support and seem to reflect the effects of perceived scarcity of spectrum combined with the limited number of slots being auctioned. We are disappointed with the outcome of the BWA spectrum auction."