India’s third generation (3G) mobile services spectrum auction may be delayed by 6 months or being pushed back to next fiscal year from the original date of auction.The Law Minister of India, Mr. Veerappa Moily, who is member of the EGoM (Empowered Group of Ministers), has opined that the auction should he held when the spectrum is available.
The 3G auction process was earlier scheduled to begin on Jan 14 but got delayed due to uncertainty over the number of slots and unavailability of the 3G spectrum, Now the 3G auction is expected to take place in August September this year. Some time back the Ministry of Defense had agreed to vacate the spectrum only during middle of this year so now the auction will be held when the spectrum vacated by Defense.
Recently the EGoM, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, had decided to allow four private telecom firms for the next generation mobile telephone services (3G) and had made a provision for garnering up to Rs 35,000 crore from the sale of airwaves in the current fiscal. Presently the state operator BSNL and MTNL are the only operators licensed to provide the next generations 3G Mobile and Broadband services in India.
