The DoT has finally made public its much anticipated revised Information Memorandum (IM) with the auctioning for 3G spectrum now scheduled to take place on January 14.
However some parts of India will still have to wait longer to actually have a feel of 3G services.
3G spectrum in the 800 MHz band, the band marked for CDMA operators keen on offering 3G services in the country, is unavailable for 6 circles namely Delhi, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan. In fact Rajasthan stands to completely miss the 3G fun as spectrum in the 2.1 GHz band (the band marked for 3G services in the GSM platform) is also not available in the circle. Spectrum in the 2.1 GHz band is also not available in the North-East circle.
One block of BWA spectrum is however available across each of all the 22 circles but even in this case the dampener is that DoT is restricting the auction only to 2.3 GHz band and has not included the 2.5 GHz band as the issue of interference is yet to be resolved with the Department of Space.
Foreign players are allowed to bid in the process.
The auction will take place in four stages. invitation stage, pre-qualification, auction and grant of spectrum. The e-auction is further divided in two stages comprising of a Clock Stage and an Assignment Stage. The process will kick-start with a pre-bid conference scheduled for November 16. The January 14 auction will be preceded with a mock auction on January 11 and 12.
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