Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea (Vi) have submitted money for the upcoming spectrum auction. The telcos have submitted a total of Rs 4,350 crore. Jio, like the previous few auctions, has submitted the most money. Jio submitted Rs 3,000 crore, while Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea Rs 1,050 crore and Rs 300 crore. The data was released by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
For the upcoming auctions, the DoT will avail the following spectrum bands for the telcos - 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz, 3300 MHz, and 26 GHz - valued at Rs 96,317.65 crore.
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This auction is expected to be slightly muted compared to the one that took place in 2022. The center generated about Rs 1.5 lakh crore from the 2022 auctions and sold 72,097.85 MHz airwaves. From the upcoming auction, the government is expected to generate around Rs 10,000 crore. Airtel and Vodafone Idea will likely only spend money on airwaves for circles where their existing spectrum is expiring.
The good thing about the new spectrum acquired in the upcoming auction will be that it will not attract spectrum usage charges (SUC). Airtel CEO, Gopal Vittal has already said that they will be spending less than usual in the upcoming auction. Telcos aren't even going to invest heavily in 5G airwaves anymore as the return on that investment will be negligible or absent for quite some time. They have enough airwaves to expand 5G and are deploying infrastructure to reach more areas with it.
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Vi is also slowly refarming the 3G spectrum in several circles to use it for 4G. This will help the telco in 4G capacity expansion and improve the coverage. What will be interesting to see is how Jio approaches the spectrum auction. The competitors will also have a keen eye on what Jio is doing, as it will reveal a lot about the company's strategy and planning for the future.
