Indian 3G auctions within four months, promises telecom secretary
Published: 1 July, 2009
READ MORE: India
The endless saga of the Indian 3G auctions may finally be drawing to a close, with the Telecom Secretary, Siddhartha Behura, saying the sale should take place in the next three to four months.
The Department of Telecom is waiting for government clearance on the key issues that have delayed progress so far - reserve price and number of licenses - but Behura indicated to Dow Jones that agreement was virtually assured this time. The auctioneer, NM Rothschild, has been given a 72-day schedule from the date of the government decision to conduct the auction.
The sale will cover 20 of India's 22 telecom circles or service areas. The latest delays in a sale that was originally supposed to run last year were caused by the Finance Ministry proposing to double the reserve price for the auction, previously set at INR20.2bn ($422m), and by new suggestions to restrict the licenses to five per circle.
Behura said he does not expect much interest from foreign companies, despite earlier speculation that international giants would take the chance to enter India, because the licenses will be limited to 5MHz. "For a new player who doesn't have 2G or basic phone license, it would be difficult" to operate with that bandwidth, he told reporters.
This restriction, which seems to prolong India's already critical shortage of bandwidth for data, may focus new attention on the WiMAX auctions - although the government is quiet on details of these at the moment, they have always been intended to run in parallel with, or just after, the 3G sale. These could give domestic or international mobile broadband players an entry point to the high growth Indian market.
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