Vodafone India on Thursday said that all the operators, new and old, should be allowed to participate in any auction of bandwidth likely to be held after the recent cancellation of 122 licenses.

The Supreme Court after cancelling the spectrum licences had directed the government to auction the spectrum.

"All operators and potential new entrants should be allowed to participate in the auction. This will ensure the most efficient allocation of the spectrum, and is necessary to discover a fair market price," said Vodafone India in a submission to Telecom Authority of India (TRAI) which had invited views from the stakeholders after the cancellation of 122 spectrum licences allotted in 2008 during the tenure of the former telecom minister A Raja.

Vodafone said that it would not be logical to limit the auction only to the spectrum which was allocated in 2008, and only amongst the parties which acquired the spectrum in 2008 saying that such artificial restriction would lead to an outcome no different from an administered price regime.

It may be recalled that operators like Uninor and Sistema Syham who are set to lose the licenses following the apex court verdict have agreed to participate in the auction with the condition that the old operators should be excluded from it.

The service providers like Vodafone, Airtel and Idea are resisting this move