The government on Monday conducted a mock auction of the 3G spectrum scheduled to be held from April 9 onwards. The mock auction was conducted to familiarise prospective bidders with the system and clarify their technical queries about the auction. The broadband wireless auction would be conducted two days after the close of the 3G spectrum auction.
The bidders logged onto the DoT?s mock auction network since morning to understand the online clock auction process.
Nine applicants, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Essar, Reliance Telecom and Idea Cellular and 11 applicants for BWA, have qualified to take part in the auction. On Friday, the DoT has convened a meeting of the participants to clarify details regarding the auction. The DoT and the appointed auctioneer, NM Rothschild, will make a presentation to the bidders in the meeting.
Finance secretary Ashok Chawla, home secretary G K Pillai, Trai chairman J S Sarma, HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh, central vigilance commissioner Pratyush Sinha and PM?s advisor on infrastructure Sam Pitroda have been invited to the meeting on Tuesday.
In the 3G spectrum auction, three private operators will be allotted two blocks of the 5Mhz spectrum in the 2.1 Ghz band in 17 circles while four operators will be allotted the same amount in the remaining 5 circles. Two blocks of spectrum in the 2.3 Ghz band will be allotted to two bidders in the BWA.