The mega telecom spectrum auction that kicked off on Saturday may not stretch beyond this week, as most of the bids by telecom operators for 4G operations are already in.

The entire 2300MHz band was sold on the first day; there were, however, no bids for the premium band — 700MHz – which may still not attract bids because of its “high” reserve price of ₹11,485 crore.

On Saturday, the government received bids worth ₹53,531 crore across bands after the end of five rounds. The duration of each round was one-and-a-half hours, which will be reduced to one hour each from Monday.

“The auction is on expected lines. No bidding on 700MHz and interest in 1800 MHz, and that too in the circles where there is some shortage. We should see some intensity in bidding in the next few days,” Prashant Singhal, global telecom leader, EY, said.

However, a senior government official told BusinessLine that they were hopeful of some activity around the 700MHz band once the other bands had been bought over.

RJio may go for 700 MHz

Analysts feel that only Reliance Jio may bid for the 700MHz band as it is cash-rich.

Apart from the 700MHz band, the 900MHz has seen sparse interest.

The first-day bids showed an appetite among operators for data-rich bands, such as 2300MHz and 1800MHz. Of the 22 circles for the 1800MHz band, only two circles — Karnataka and Odisha – did not see bids.

A Department of Telecom report noted that most of the bids were made at the reserve price, except for 800MHz, which saw bids above the reserve price for the Gujarat circle.

The airwaves on sale are worth ₹5.63 lakh crore; seven telecom operators, including Airtel, Aircel, Idea, Reliance Communications, Jio and Vodafone, are bidding.

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