BWA spectrum auction fetches Rs. 38,300 crore

New Delhi, June 11 (ANI): The Union Government on Friday raised over Rs 38,300 crore from the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum auction.

The 16-day long auction came to an end today.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) is yet to release details of the BWA auction winners.

The BWA auction had two slots of 20 MHz of Pan-India spectrum.

As many as eleven companies, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Vodafone and Tata Communications Internet Services, participated in the auction.

The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and the Mahanagar Telecom Nigam Limited (MTNL), which have been given the BWA spectrum ahead of private players, will have to pay the equivalent of the winning bid in each service area.

The revenue from the sale of spectrum for both 3G and BWA would be over Rs 1.06 lakh crore, which is more than thrice the earlier projection of Rs 35,000 crore.

During 3G spectrum auction the government had raised Rs 67,719 crore.

On the lines of 3G, Mumbai and Delhi received the highest bid amounts of over Rs 2,272 crore and Rs 2,221 crore, respectively.

The BWA spectrum enables high-speed Internet access as well as Internet telephony and TV services and can also be used for voice and high-speed data services. (ANI)