Once upon a time Indian Telecom / Wireless space was one of the most lucrative market that even companies in Real Estate, Industrial Metals to IT – such as Parsvnath, Allianz Infratech, Tuplip IT, JSW, Sterlite, etc dreamt of becoming Bharti Airtel. However, with A. Raja engineering a massive multi-billion dollar scam to benefit a selected few such as Unitech, Swan, etc the entire industry suffered a setback as Supreme Court cancelled the licenses and ordered fresh auction of Telecom Spectrum.
As the deadline for the forthcoming 2G Auction participation ended yesterday, we do not find many bidders in race for 1800MHz / 800MHz Telecom spectrum. All the daredevils have went missing as the Spectrum is expensively priced.
Here is the list of Bidders for 1800MHz Spectrum
1. Bharti Airtel
2. Idea Cellular
3. Vodafone India
4. Telewings Communications Services Private Limited [Telenor]
5. Videocon Telecommunications
Bidders for 800MHz Spectrum
1. Tata Teleservices / DoCoMo
2. Videocon Telecommunications
MTS Sistema Shayam TeleServices is banking on the Supreme Court curative petition praying it has no role in the 2G License Scam. However, with even existing and allocated 900Mhz spectrum being re-farmed and re-auctioned, chances of MTS Sistema winning the 800MHz spectrum back are slim unless the Government resorts to another round of massive corruption and bails out MTS using the Bi-Lateral Treaty clause.
The Indian Telecommunications Sector will be finally left with 9 Operators – Airtel, Vodafone, BSNL / MTNL, Idea, Reliance Communications, Tata DoCoMo, Aircel, Telenor and Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Infotel [They haven’t even bid, How ? Wait for the next post]