5G Spectrum Auction Starts Online, Four Major Participants Bid

5G spectrum auction begins online. The four major participants in the race are Reliance Jio, Adani Group, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea. All the four companies have together submitted a combined Rs 21,400 core in earnest money deposit (EMD). Reliance Jio Infocomm has put in an EMD of Rs 14,000 while Bharti Airtel has submitted  Rs 5,500 crore. Vodafone Idea has submitted Rs 2,200 crore as earnest money. In the 2021 auctions for the 4G spectrum, Reliance Jio used 77.9 percent of their earnest money deposit while Airtel used 87.7 percent. The 5G auction is expected to conclude by July-end.

The auction of 5G Spectrum in India starts on July 26, with about 72,000 MHz under nine bands up for sale with a validity period of 20 years. The Union Cabinet approved the auction on June 15 and allowed non-telecom service providers to bid for spectrum to set up captive 5G networks.

The Department of Telecom (DoT) has released a notification inviting applications (NIA) for the auction of frequency bands from low (600 Mhz, 700 Mhz, 800 Mhz, 900 Mhz, 1800 Mhz, 2100 Mhz, 2300 Mhz, 2500 Mhz) and mid (3.3-3.67 Ghz) to high (26 Ghz).