Government eyes Rs 12,000 cr as revenue from spectrum sale in March

Government expects to get initial payment of around 12,000 crore from spectrum auction scheduled to start from March 11, a senior DoT official said. 

"If participants in the auction choose to opt to pay in installments, then first installment will be around Rs 12,000 crore," the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) official said on the sidelines of an open session with industry on the upcoming spectrum auction. 

The official added that Rs 12,000 crore is based on estimates that all spectrum that is being put up for auction, starting March 11, will be sold at the reserve price. 

The DoT in the official document for upcoming spectrum auction has given option to bidders of GSM spectrum to pay only 33 per cent in the case of 1800MHz band (currently used for GSM services) and 25 per cent in case of 900MHz and 800MHz band of the final bid amount. 

Government has so far only received around Rs 1,700 crore from spectrum auction conducted in November 2012. Most of the airwaves frequencies in this auction were sold at reserve prices. 

Based on the bid amount, government has asked old telecom operators to pay one-time spectrum fee on the airwaves allocated to them beyond 4.4 Mhz spectrum in case of GSM. In case of CDMA, the fee is for spectrum beyond 2.5 Mhz, which they got along with their permits.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/telecom-news/item/937-government-eyes-rs-12000-cr-as-revenue-from-spectrum-sale-in-march.htmlhttp://cablequest.org/news/telecom-news/item/937-government-eyes-rs-12000-cr-as-revenue-from-spectrum-sale-in-march.html