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The Government of India has set September 1, 2010 as the date to allot 3G spectrum to the successful bidders during the recently concluded auction. While, the spectrum for initiation Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) service would be received immediately.

In a press meet Telecom Secretary P J Thomas informed that a Letter of Intent (LoI) has been issued by the Department of Telecommunications to the 3G winners and winners to the BWA auction would be receiving the same in next week.

The delay in the allocation of airwaves for 3G services is observed due to spectrum held by the Defence Forces. The Defence Forces will be vacating the spectrum by August. On the other hand Government has spectrum for the rollout of BWA service in hand and thus can be allotted soon.
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Talking about the transparency maintained in the first online auction, e-auction, conducted by the Government Thomas remarked, “There was no ambiguity in price setting mechanism and the price was discovered based on what free market participants were willing to pay for the spectrum. All the rules of the auction process were declared upfront and stakeholders were provided opportunities to comment on these.”

The government has garnered Rs. 106000 crores of overall revenues from the sale of airwaves for both the services. “The revenue is more than 3 times the target of Rs. 35,000 crores fixed by the Ministry of Finance in its budget documents and more than five times the reserve price,” said Thomas.

The realization for 40 MHz of 3G spectrum was Rs. 67,718.95 crores which is 4.75 times the reserve price of Rs. 3500 crores and Rs. 1675.10 crores per MHz pan India. Similarly the realization for 60 MHz of BWA spectrum was Rs. 38,543.31 crores which is 7.34 times the reserve price of Rs. 1750 crores and Rs. 642.39 crores per MHz pan India.

The auctions were conducted by Department of Telecom and the auctioneer consortium of M/s. N M Rothschild India (Private) Limited and M/s DotEcon of UK. The 3G and BWA spectrum is allotted for 20 years.