BWA spectrum price for single pan-India slot crosses Rs9,500 crore

The government seems to be poised to net a bonanza exceeding Rs1 lakh crore, from India's next-generation airwaves. It has already fetched combined revenues of Rs 96,285 crore with broadband wireless access (BWA) auctions yielding Rs28,566 crore yesterday and the just-concluded 3G auctions, Rs67,719 crore.

It is expected that BWA auctions would end in the next few days, with the level of activity being raised to 90 per cent on Thursday.

Yesterday, BWA spectrum price for a single pan-India slot reached Rs9,522 crore, which is 444 per cent higher than the Rs1,750 crore, reserve price. A total of 11 bidders are competing for 20 MHz of BWA spectrum in the 2.3 GHz band for broadband wireless services.

The auction would see the government award two slots per circle to private operators. State owned BSNL/MTNL have already got one slot each for which they would later match the highest bid.

With the BWA spectrum, operators will be able to provide high-speed broadband services. The BWA spectrum will also facilitate several e-governance projects related to health and education in remote areas.

The 11 players competing for the slots, are Aircel, Augere (Mauritius), Bharti Airtel, Infotel Broadband Services, Qualcomm, Reliance WiMAX, Spice Internet Service, Provider Private Ltd, Tata Communications Internet Services, Tikona Digital Networks and Vodafone-Essar. The spectrum allocation will happen in September.

According to the DoT website, Mumbai and Delhi attracted the highest bids, with Mumbai getting bids at Rs1,554.21 crore while Delhi getting bids worth Rs1,514.58 crore.

At current bidding value, the government would gross over Rs 28,500 crore and considering a few rounds of the e-auction are still remaining, the revenue collection could easily exceed Rs30,000 crore say analysts.