Pan-India BWA bids reach US$902 million on day 3

Bids for an India-wide broadband wireless access (BWA) licence touched INR 41.83 billion (US$902 million) on the third day of India’s BWA auction, already 139 per cent above the base price of INR 17.5 billion. In comparison to the just-concluded 3G auction, it took 14 days for pan-India 3G bids to record a 139 per cent increase.

The government is offering two slots of radio bandwidth in each of the 22 telecommunication service areas, with 11 parties approved to participate: Aircel, Augere (Mauritius), Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Infotel Broadband Services, Qualcomm, Reliance WiMAX, Spice Internet Service Provider, Tata Communications Internet Services, Tikona Digital Networks and Vodafone Essar.

It has been suggested that the BWA auction could also prove highly competitive and last more than a month.

The 3G spectrum sale attracted INR 677.2 billion (US$14.6 billion) in licence fees, following 34 days and 183 rounds of bidding.