The government expects to garner revenues worth Rs 35,000 crore from wireless broadband spectrum auction, which is expected to be completed in a week.
Expected revenue from the sale of 20 megahertz (MHz) of broadband air waves for two slots in each of the 22 telecom circles has already crossed Rs 25,000 crore. Telecom minister A. Raja had estimated to earn around Rs 15,000 crore as licence fee from broadband spectrum.
“With the auction already entering 90 per cent activity level, the bids are likely to continue for a few more days,” officials in the department of telecom said.
The sale of 3G spectrum has fetched around Rs 67,700 crore.
Broadband spectrum is expected to boost connectivity in the country. India, which has 8 million broadband users against around 600 million phone connections, has the largest market potential. The government had set a goal of 20 million broadband connections by 2010.
Delhi and Mumbai continue to remain the favourite circles for bidders. While Delhi has reached a provisional winning price of Rs 1,384 crore, Mumbai is quoting Rs 1,404 crore compared with the initial base price of Rs 160 crore.
According to analysts, competition will be tough in metros and category A circles as unlike 3G, where an operator got just two slots of 5MHz each, a wireless broadband winner will get one block of 20MHz.
The government has allocated one block of 20MHz of spectrum each to MTNL and BSNL in their respective service areas on the condition that they pay the winning bid price.
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