5G Spectrum Auction: The center will receive Rs 1,49,966 crore worth of bids within 5 days

New Del­hi: The auc­tion of 5G spec­trum, which can offer ultra-high-speed inter­net, entered its sixth day of bid­ding on Sun­day after receiv­ing bids worth Rs 1,49,966 crore in the first five days from the likes of Reliance Jio and Bhar­ti Air­tel were. The bid­ding resumed with the 31st round Sun­day morn­ing and the fol­low­ing round is cur­rent­ly under­way, sources said. 

The fierce bat­tle in Uttar Pradesh’s east­ern dis­trict — where demand for 1800MHz had peaked since Wednes­day — appears to be cool­ing now, sug­gest­ing auc­tions may be enter­ing the final phase, accord­ing to indus­try sources. (ALSO READ: Hol­i­days 2022: Banks to remain closed for 18 days in August; full list here) 

How­ev­er, much would depend on how the bid­ding pro­gress­es through­out the day, they added. (ALSO READ: ITR Fil­ing FY22: Over 5.10M Returns Filed, 57.5 Lakh Returns Filed on Saturday) 

On Sat­ur­day, the total val­ue of bids at the tele­com spec­trum auc­tion came with­in strik­ing dis­tance of the Rs 1.50 bil­lion mark. 

“The 5G auc­tion shows that the indus­try wants to expand. She has over­come prob­lems and is in a growth phase. The auc­tion results are very good, almost Rs 1,49,966 crore has been com­mit­ted by the indus­try to buy the spec­trum,” said Tele­com Min­is­ter Ash­wi­ni Vaish­naw at a brief­ing in Mum­bai after a tele­com investors round­table on Saturday. 

The min­is­ter not­ed that the auc­tion and its “good response” under­scores the matu­ri­ty of the industry. 

Bil­lion­aire Mukesh Amban­i’s Reliance Jio, Sunil Mit­tal’s Bhar­ti Air­tel, Voda­fone Idea and a unit of Adani Enter­pris­es, bil­lion­aire Gau­tam Adani’s flag­ship, are in the race for the 5G spec­trum, which offers speeds around 10 times faster than 4G, and lag-free con­nec­tiv­i­ty and can enable bil­lions of con­nect­ed devices to share data in real-time. 

In addi­tion to pro­vid­ing ultra-low laten­cy con­nec­tions that allow down­load­ing full-length, high-qual­i­ty videos or movies in sec­onds (even in crowd­ed areas) to a mobile device, the fifth gen­er­a­tion or 5G would enable solu­tions such as e‑health, con­nect­ed vehi­cles, immer­sive aug­ment­ed real­i­ty and meta­verse expe­ri­ences, life-sav­ing use cas­es, and advanced mobile cloud gam­ing to name a few. 

The min­is­ter claimed that the reserve price set for fre­quen­cies was a “fair num­ber” and that was reflect­ed in the auc­tion result. 

Incre­men­tal­ly came in Rs 111–112 crore on Sat­ur­day, pre­lim­i­nary pro­ceeds ris­ing from the Rs 1,49,855 crore received through Fri­day from the likes of Reliance Jio and Bhar­ti Airtel.

Notably, demand in Uttar Pradesh East fell below sup­ply lev­els on Sat­ur­day after exceed­ing avail­able quan­ti­ty for three con­sec­u­tive days since Wednesday. 

Pre­vi­ous­ly, demand was 75 blocks ver­sus sup­ply of 54 blocks, experts said, adding that demand as of Sat­ur­day night was 50 blocks, four short of sup­ply in the county. 

Sev­en new rounds were con­duct­ed on Sat­ur­day and the bid­ding moved to Sun­day (a depar­ture from the past when bid­ding typ­i­cal­ly took place between Mon­day and Sat­ur­day). By Fri­day, around 71 per­cent of the total spec­trum placed in the block had been pro­vi­sion­al­ly sold. 

After a fly­ing start on Tues­day, with play­ers pour­ing in Rs 1.45 lakh crore on day one, num­bers rose only grad­u­al­ly on Wednes­day, Thurs­day, Fri­day and Sat­ur­day as Jio and Air­tel bid intense­ly for 1800 in Uttar Pradesh East coun­ty MHz band.

In total, 72 GHz (giga­hertz) radio waves are worth at least Rs 4.3 lakh crore on the block. 

Spec­trum in var­i­ous low (600 MHz, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz), medi­um (3300 MHz) and high (26 GHz) fre­quen­cy bands will be auctioned.