As the first day of Spectrum auction 2022 drew to a close today after 4 clock rounds of bidding, the auction will continue tomorrow starting with the fifth round of bidding. We take a look at the various spectrum bands which saw active bidding by the telcos today. Since in this auction, the spectrum availability is ample and the number of participants is low, we will not be seeing the winning prices deviating much from the base price.
600 MHz:
This band saw no interest from any of the operators since the band has not been officially finalised by the ITU and there is no device ecosystem around it.
700 MHz:
This band finally saw some interest this year after being ignored by the operators in the last 2 auctions. At the end of round 4, there there was a demand for 10 Mhz (2 blocks of 5 MHz) in each of the 22 circles which was most probably by Reliance Jio. The remaining 3 blocks remained unsold.
850 MHz:
This band saw limited participation, with only Reliance Jio picking up 5 MHz (4 blocks of 1.25 MHz) in the 4 circles of Assam, Jammu & Kashmir, North East and UP West where it currently holds 5 Mhz so as to complete its Pan India 10 MHz footprint in this band.
900 MHz:
This band also saw limited participation in the auction. Bharti Airtel picked up 3.8 MHz in Assam circle and 5 MHz in Jammu & Kashmir circle. There was also some demand in North East circle, which could be from either Airtel or Vi.
1800 MHz:
In this band there was a demand for 10 MHz in Gujarat circle, 5 MHz in Himachal Pradesh, 5 MHz in Kolkata circle, 10 MHz in Madhya Pradesh, 10 MHz in Maharashtra, 4 MHz in Mumbai, 10 MHz in Rajasthan and there was also some demand in Odisha and UP East circles. These could be from either of the 3 telcos Jio, Airtel and Vi.
2100 MHz:
In this band there was a demand for 1 block of 5 MHz in Bihar, Delhi and Gujarat, Haryana, Kerala and West Bengal circles. These could be from either Airtel or Vi.
2300 MHz:
This band saw no demand in the auction today. No bids were received for this band from any of the operators.
2500 MHz:
Vi picked up one block of 10 MHz in each of the two circles of Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. The remaining spectrum in this band stayed unsold.
3.5 GHz:
Reliance Jio has picked up 100 MHz (10 blocks of 10 MHz) in each of the 22 circles, Bharti Airtel has also picked up 100 MHz pan India and Vi has bought 50 MHz in the 17 priority circles (except for Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, North East and Odisha).
26 GHz:
There were bids received for this band in each of the 22 circles, with serious bids being made only by Jio and Airtel. Jio may have picked up 1000 MHz pan India and Airtel may have picked up 600 to 800 MHz in each of the 22 circles, Vi may have made limited bids in the 17 priority circles where it may have picked up 200 to 400 MHz while it is unlikely any bids would have been made in the non-priority circles. Adani group seems to have bid for a few blocks only in the Gujarat circle.
According to e auction report there is no bid in 1800mhz in up east circle
No bid in round 4, there was a bid in either rounds 1, 2 or 3.
Reg the 26GHz mmWave band, in most category C circles (where VoId shows no interest), 36 blocks are sold, which is 1.8GHz (50MHz per block, if I am not wrong) and I guess Jio got 1000MHz (can proclaim 1GHz) Pan India and Airtel about 800MHz, again Pan India. In most priority circles of VoId viz. Haryana, MP+CG, Maharashtra, Kerala, WB, 44 blocks / 2.2GHz sold ==> 1GHz by Jio, 800MHz by Airtel and 400MHz by VoId. Similarly 41 blocks in Karnataka, AP, UP(E) may be VoId got 250MHz of spectrum.
With 47 blocks sold in Gujarat, (which is the highest btw) looks like Adani got 26GHz spectrum only in GJ circle, may be VoId 250MHz and Adani 300MHz.
I wonder why Airtel skipped Band40 altogether? They should have got 2.2MHz of Band 8 / 900MHz in Karnataka circle. Why they kept 900MHz in Gujarat and Kerala below 5MHz even now? Why are they NOT buying Band 1 in Kolkata circle (to have Pan India presence in that band) is also beyond me. May be all such actions will happen today (Wednesday).
Jio is the most sincere and disciplined operator. They always try to get uniform amount of spectrum Pan India and no priority circle. Airtel is sincere, but NOT disciplined.
I was also expecting Airtel to get B40 wherever they left. Kolkata i think they got B3 5MHz and B1 they can’t deploy as they already deployed B3 4×4 Mimo instead of B1 on all sites. Deploying B1 now will be hard for them so it’s better to top up B3
Adani might have bid in maharashtra and few other ciircle, where they have powerplant/factotiries/port/airport.
vi bidding 400mhzv/250mhz along with 50mhz c band may not fit into EMD of2200.