News
Telcos want a bigger gap between a trial auction and the actual start of bidding.
India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is considering requests by operators to delay its planned multi-band spectrum auction by one or two days, to provide a bigger gap between a trial auction and the actual start of bidding.
Under current plans set out under the DoT’s notice inviting applications (NIA), prospective bidders have until 13 September to apply to take part; a final list of qualified participants will be published on 23 September. A mock auction will then take place on 26 and 27 September, followed by the auction proper on 29 September.
According to local reports, telcos that took part in the pre-bid conference on 13 August also requested a deferment of the actual auction because 29 September falls during the ‘Shradh’ rituals to pay homage to ancestors. The Indian Express noted that people generally abstain from starting new work in this period.
The government is auctioning 2,200 MHz of frequencies across the 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2.1 GHz, 2.3 GHz and 2.5 GHz bands. Licences will be valid for 20 years; rollout obligations vary by frequency band.
The government hopes to raise a minimum of 5.44 trillion rupees (€71 billion) from the sale; however, analysts doubt whether that sum is achievable, and there are expected to be some notable absentees when the auction kicks off.
The Indian Express said representatives from various companies including RCom, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Idea, Vodafone and Telenor took part in the pre-bid conference.
Meanwhile separate reports also noted that Reliance Jio was due to roll out its 4G services as of Monday 15 August. The Hindu Business Line recently cited comments to this effect from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which also said it expects Reliance Jio to bundle in free voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) services with its data offering.
However, Reliance Jio’s commercial launch has been a long time coming, with trials under way since December last year. Indian telcos also recently claimed that Reliance Jio is masquerading full-blown commercial services under the guise of the trial, flooding their networks with outbound voice traffic.
