The provisional winning price -- Rs.5,095.91crore is 45.6 percent up from Rs.3,500 crore fixed by the government as reserve price for a nationwide licence.
Slots for three-four players are available in each of the 22 circles into which the country has been geographically divided for these services.
The government has already given Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) spectrum for 3G services on the condition that they will pay the same licence fee as would be levied on private players after theauction.
Along with the fee that will be eventually paid by the two state-run enterprises for the licences, the government will provisionally get Rs.20,728.34 crore from the auction, which so far is well below the projected earning of Rs.35,000 crore.
This is on the presumption that every available slot gets filled at the provisionally approved price.
The Gujarat circle continued to attract the highest bid. The bid price for the state stands at 512.61 crore, followed by Delhi at Rs. 493.09crore and Tamil Nadu at Rs.483.79 crore, according to the latest data available on the website of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
Four states -- Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Orissa and West Bengal -- could not attract even a single player.
Nine telecom companies -- Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices, Aircel, Etisalat, S Tel and Videocon Telecommunications -- are participating in the onlineauction process, which began April 9.
It is a simultaneous auction for 22 circles over a secure website. At each round, the price is hiked from between 10-1 percent based on demand.
The auction is being held from 9 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. on all days, except Sundays and national holidays. The process will end only when the demand is equal to the number of slots available in each circle.
The bid data, including the winning companies' names, will be made public after the auction's completion and approval by the government. The winning firms will have to deposit the money within 10 days after the auction.
The successful bidders would be allowed to offer 3G services on a commercial basis from Sep 1.
The 3G services will facilitate much faster connectivity than what is available now and enable applications such as Internet TV, video-on-demand, audio-video calls and high-speed data exchange.
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