In just four days of auction, the bid for the pan-Indian broadband wireless access spectrum has gone up by three times to Rs 5,245 crore (Rs 52.45 billion) against the base price of Rs 1,750 crore (Rs 17.50 billion).
At the current price the government would realise a revenue of Rs 15,675 crore (Rs 156.75 billion) from sale of three slots of BWA radio waves. The government is auctioning two slots of 20 MHz of pan- Indian BWA spectrum.
BSNL and MTNL, which have already been given the BWA spectrum ahead of private players, will have to pay the equivalent of the winning bid in each service area. Earlier, the government had estimated a revenue of Rs 35,000 crore (Rs 350 billion) from sale of both 3G and BWA radio waves.
At today's price for BWA spectrum, the government's total revenue goes beyond Rs 83,000 crore (Rs 830 billion).
The 3G auction, which concluded recently, has fetched Rs 67,719 crore to the government. Today, eight rounds of bidding were held which pushed the pan-Indian bid price beyond Rs 5,245 crore.
As many as 11 companies are bidding for broadband wireless access spectrum. Apart from Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Vodafone and Tata Communications Internet Services, the BWA list has four new players Augere, Tikona Wireless, Infotel Broadband Services and Qualcomm, and Spice Internet and Infotel.
BWA spectrum allows companies to offer high-speed Internet access as well as Internet telephony and TV services. It can also be used for voice and high-speed data services.
