Telcos gear up for spectrum battle

Vodafone, Reliance Industries and Bharti Airtel are likely to put up a fierce fight for scarce telecom spectrum in the auction next month, if bank guarantees furnished by them are any indication.
Vodafone has offered a bank guarantee of Rs 2,800 crore while RIL arm Reliance Jio, which owns a nationwide licence for 4G mobile networks, has put in a bank surety of Rs 2,600 crore. Airtel has submitted Rs 3,700 crore in bank guarantees, sources said. The bank guarantees may indicate the amount of spectrum that the companies will bid for. Vodafone, R-Jio and Airtel may bid for the 900 MHz spectrum in Delhi and Mumbai.
Idea Cellular, which has put in Rs 1,565 crore bank guarantee, may bid for 900 MHz in Mumbai. Reliance Communications’ offer of Rs 200 crore bank guarantee and Tata Teleservices putting in a Rs 130 crore surety indicate they may bid for small chunks of spectrum to fill gaps in their network.