Govt to auction CDMA airwaves on March 11

No GSM operator has bid for spectrum,SSTL may bid for 11 circles

The government has advanced the date of auction of CDMA airwaves to March 11 due to an absence of any bidder for GSM airwaves. According to the earlier plan,the auction of CDMA airwaves were to start two days after the conclusion of the auction of GSM airwaves.

GSM airwaves in 1800 and 900 MHz bands were to be auctioned simultaneously starting from March 11,2013,and the 800 MHz band CDMA airwaves auction was to commence two days after the conclusion of the auction of GSM airwaves. In the light of these developments,the auction of 800 MHz spectrum will commence on March 11 itself, DoT said in a statement.

The governments plan to auction GSM and CDMA airwaves saw interest from only one company Sistema Shyam Teleservices SSTL.

While Sistema may bid for the eleven circles where its operations are still continuing as CDMA operator,no GSM company will bid in the auction.

There was no interest from the operators even after the government brought down the reserve price by 30 per cent from the November tag. For CDMA the cut back was 50 per cent. The auctions for GSM airwaves next month were to be conducted for Delhi,Mumbai,Karnataka and Rajasthan circles,which did not receive any bids in the earlier auctions held in November 2012. The CDMA auctions are for pan-India operations.

The DoT will start process for third round of auction for at least 20 out of 22 services area to comply with the Supreme Court order in 2012,following the cancellation of licences.

Airtel,Idea gain on price cut rumours

Shares of Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular on Tuesday defied broader market sentiment and settled with 1.4-3.7 per cent gains on speculation that government will cut reserve price for airwaves after just one company Sistema Shyam bid for next months auction.

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Bharti Airtel surged nearly 9 per cent 8.96 per cent during the day to touch an intra-day high of Rs 334.55. The stock pared some gains to end at Rs 311.30,a rise of 1.38 per cent from its last close.

2G base price too high: Vodafone CEO

Vodafone,which has not applied for taking part in spectrum auction in March,on Tuesday said the reserve price set is too high and the company cannot afford to pay in India where there is uncertainty about airwaves and revenues are low.

The problem is that in India there is a misperception of what is the value of spectrum. The reserve prices are set too high. India has very low prices and very low revenues so we cannot afford to pay high price for spectrum, Vodafone Groups Chief Executive Officer Vittorio Colao said.