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The not so serious looking spectrum auction initially, is now entering into its fifth day on Saturday, after closing the day four on Friday with a total of 23 rounds and bidding worth ₹1,49,855 crore took place.
The day four started with the 17th round at 10 a.m. and each round was of 45 minutes of bidding. The amount generated on Friday is ₹232 crore more than on Thursday when the bidding amount was recorded at ₹1,49,623 crore at the end of 16th round.
In the seven rounds of bidding that took place on Friday, the maximum interest was shown in the 3300MHz by the telecom service providers (TSPs).
The action continues to be in the Uttar Pradesh east circle only with excess demand in 21 blocks that means no one is relenting, as per the industry veterans.
India's first auction of 5G spectrum, which powers ultra-high data speeds, is currently underway with a total of 72 GHz (gigahertz) of radiowaves worth at least ₹4.3 lakh crore up for bidding. The auction started on Tuesday.
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Telecom spectrum auction: Day 3 closes at ₹1,49,623 crore with the 16th round
To continue with the 17th round on Friday"Round 23 has concluded and at the end of it, the collection was ₹1,49,455 crore. Tomorrow round 24 will start...by now close to 71 per cent of the spectrum are sold provisionally," Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, told reporters here.
When asked, if the auction may conclude on Saturday, he said "most likely".
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and a unit of billionaire Gautam Adani's flagship Adani Enterprises are in the race to bid for 5G spectrum, which offers speeds about 10 times faster than 4G, lag-free connectivity, and can enable billions of connected devices to share data in real-time.
In addition to powering ultra-low latency connections, which allow downloading full-length high-quality video or movie to a mobile device in a matter of seconds (even in crowded areas), 5G would enable solutions such as e-health, connected vehicles, more-immersive augmented reality and metaverse experiences, life-saving use cases, and advanced mobile cloud gaming among others.
The auction is being held for spectrum in various low (600 MHz, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz), mid (3300 MHz) and high (26 GHz) frequency bands.
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