Airtel, Aircel, Idea, Reliance Jio, Uninor can bid for all 22 circles, says DoT

Bharti Airtel, Aircel, Idea Cellular, Reliance Jio Infocomm and Telewings Communications are eligible to bid for 22 circles across the country, according to the list of pre-qualified bidders published by the DoT.

Vodafone India will not be able to bid for seven circles – Assam, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, North East and Orissa, in the auction of spectrum.

Tata Teleservices will not be permitted to bid for Delhi circle.

Reliance Communications (RCom) will not be able to bid for eight circles – Assam, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Kolkata, Madhya Pradesh, North East, Orissa and West Bengal.

This means, if the spectrum auction needs to intensify, it will be because of a direct competition between Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Jio Infocomm and Sunil Mittal-promoted Bharti Airtel.

Reliance Jio Infocomm already said it will be looking for spectrum to offer voice services to its 4G users.

For Airtel, the forthcoming auction is important. Bharti Airtel’s licences in Delhi and Kolkata, where it holds the premium 900 MHz spectrum, are expiring in November, and it will have to bid aggressively to retain its current holding of airwaves in the circles.

For the 900MHz band, telecoms need to deposit Rs 438.75 crore as minimum earnest money if they want to bid for 5MHz spectrum each in all three metros — Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. For the 900 MHz band in Delhi and Mumbai, the two major metros, companies are required to provide a bank guarantee of Rs 172.5 crore each.

Meanwhile, Bharti Airtel on Tuesday approached the department of telecommunications (DoT) with a request to reduce the bank guarantees to Rs 2,975.25 crore from Rs 3,700.25 crore. Airtel earlier had given the highest amount in bank guarantees of Rs 3,700 crore.

Vodafone India submitted Rs 2,800 crore in bank guarantees, Reliance Jio Infocomm Rs 2,596.25 crore, Idea Cellular Rs 1,567.5 crore, Telewings (Uninor) Rs 330 crore, Tata Teleservices Rs 267 crore, Reliance Communications Rs 198.75 crore and Aircel Rs 100 crore.

editor@telecomlead.com