DoT to conduct Licence renewal telecom auction soon

Department of Telecom will now conduct one more telecom auction this year. This auction will be conducted for the 211.8 MHz spectrum both of 900 MHz and 1800 MHz frequency band. These 211.8 MHz units of airwaves are currently under the licence of various Telecom providers and will get expire highest by April 2016. As per norms and rules if any telecom company want to continue with these airwaves further than they will have to take part in auction and win licence 18 months prior to their expiration.

There are many top player in the list whose licence will expire in coming 18 months. Airtel, Idea, Vodafone and RCom top the list of all total 29 spectrum permits. These permits are for 17-18 telecom circles which include high population circles like Andhra pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Maharashtra and UP west. In 211.8 MHz unit of airwaves around 184 MHz are of 900 MHz band and 1800 MHz band’s unit are the remaining 27.8 MHz.

It is sure that all leading telecom companies will take part in the auction to keep their services continue. But for now DoT is going through a big challenge to decide base price of airwaves units. In the last telecom auction which took place in Feb of this year the base price of both 1800 MHz and 900 MHz band were kept low in comparison of the price which was decided for auction in Nov 2012 and March 2013. But still bidding went aggressive and almost double of the base fare was earned after the end of bidding in many sectors. A part of officials are saying that they should keep the base price for a unit equal to the price of unit at which they were sold finally. This will raise the price heavily and many telecom experts say that by doing this auction will fail.

If considered from telecom operators point of view, they may not bid aggressively in this auction as most of them have won good amount of 1800 MHz spectrum in the same area where they need to renew their licence. But still there will be good amount of competition due to obvious factors.

Though the date for the auction is not yet announced and neither any telecom company is informed anything related to this matter but it is expected that this process will happen before the end of Q3. We will inform you the each and every aspects of telecom news whenever it arrive. All you need to do is follow us on social media of you can subscribe us.