The auction for airwaves to be held in November may not be as competitive and aggressive as one expected to with Russia’s Sistema, Reliance Communications and Aircel deciding not to participate in the bid.

State owned telcos MTNL and BSNL have already said that they are not going to participate in the auction as they already have enough spectrum.

 “We have consistently maintained that it has been unfairly penalised in the February ruling of the Supreme Court and has filed a Curative Petition seeking to restore its licences. There is no finding or suggestion by the CAG report that CDMA spectrum was equally or anywhere near in demand as GSM. SSTL believes it has a strong case and is determined to await its hearing”, SSTL said in a statement.

Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices, Telenor and Videocon, on Friday filed their applications for bid. 

Meanwhile the biggest surprise was the decision of Infotel Broadband not to participate in auction despite its participation in the pre-bid conference.

The government had fixed the reserve price for auction at Rs 14,000 crore for five MHz, 22% lower than sector regulator Trai’s recommendation of Rs 18,000 crore. The base price for 800-MHz spectrum used by CDMA operators has been fixed at 1.3 times that of the 2G spectrum in 1,800 MHz. The Government hopes to get over Rs 40,000 crore from the auction of spectrum.

Friday was the last day for filing applications for auction in the 1800 Mhz and 800 Mhz band.

The final list of bidders will be declared on 6th November and the auction of the 1800 Mhz band will start from 12th November. Speaking to journalists after the end of the application deadline.

DOT secretary R Chandrasekhar said told media persons on Friday that six telecom operators have bid and Videocon has bid both for GSM as well as CDMA.