spectrum auction: Department of Telecommunications delays spectrum auction to June 6 amid general elections
The DoT has amended the notice inviting application (NIA), changing the date for the auction after telecom operators requested that the sale be deferred to post completion of the polls. The elections start from April 19 and the results are to be declared on June 4.
Similarly, the mock auction will now be conducted on June 3 instead of May 13-14. The other timetable, however, remains the same.
Apart from that, the DoT has provided clarity to a host of queries raised by the telecom operators. For the first time, the DoT will be publishing an auction catalogue for live auction. Through the auction catalogue, each bidder will be able to view its eligibility points, net worth, earnest money deposit (EMD), spectrum holding data (existing), and the details of LSA-bands put to auction.
The DoT has clarified that there won’t be a need to have bank guarantee and performance bank guarantee for spectrum assignment as the same had been revoked earlier during telecom reforms. The DoT had inadvertently put BG/PBG in the NIA but after telcos pointed it out, the NIA has been amended.
Further, the DoT has clarified that provisional spectrum assigned for a period of 3 months shall be excluded from the holding of the telcos, while calculating spectrum caps.On some issues, the DoT has reiterated its stand, despite telcos raising objections. For instance, on a query from telecom firms regarding under-utilisation of assigned spectrum due to issues such as interference or non-contiguity for which DoT is solely responsible, the telcos have sought proportionate relief in terms of either reduced payout or extension of validity of spectrum, in order to reduce the impact on the investments made by them.“We request DoT to kindly issue detailed guidelines regarding this, well before the last date of submission of applications (i.e. 22nd April 2024), to enable the TSPs to account for the same in their bidding strategy,” the telcos pointed out to DoT. But the suggestion was not entertained by DoT.
