The upcoming spectrum auction, which will see airwaves worth Rs 96,317.65 crore across bands being put up for sale, will start from May 20, according to notice inviting applications (NIA) released by the department of telecommunications (DoT) on Friday. The country’s three telecom service providers, Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea will be participating in it.

A total of 10,523.15 MHz spectrum across 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz, 3300 MHz and 26 GHz bands, worth Rs 96,317.65 crore will be auctioned.

According to the NIA, companies need to apply till April 22 after which the department of telecommunications will conduct a mock auction on May 13 and 14 before starting the actual auction.

“Annual spectrum auction calendar is a major reform. Now telecom service providers will get opportunity to buy spectrum regularly in a transparent way,” communications and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a post on X on Friday.

This time, DoT is expecting a subdued response from telcos as demand is expected to be restricted to airwaves which will be up for renewal in some circles. The government is not expecting anything beyond Rs 10,000 crore revenue from the auctions, according to officials.

“The next spectrum auction will be a limited auction because an already large part of the spectrum required by the industry was auctioned last year. Every financial year, we are trying to have one auction, Vaishnaw had said last month.

“This will not be as big as the last round. This will be a significantly smaller auction,” Vaishnaw added.

In a bid to avoid any disruption in the telecom services, the Cabinet last month also approved fresh allotment of a certain quantum of spectrum to companies Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, which was due for renewal (at the end of a 20-year lease period). This was done as an interim adjustment till the time auctions are conducted.

According to analysts, for Airtel, renewal of spectrum is due in 900 and 1800 MHz bands in six circles — Uttar Pradesh (East), Uttar Pradesh (West), West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, and Odisha. For Vodafone Idea, the licence is expiring in two circles — West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh (West).

The value of expiring spectrum is only about Rs 6,100 crore, that includes Rs 4,200 crore worth spectrum for Airtel and Rs 1,900 crore worth spectrum for Vodafone Idea, according to government and analysts estimates. Jio has no spectrum up for renewal.

A weak response is expected this time as already the telecom operators have acquired 4G/5G spectrum worth Rs 1.5 trillion in the last spectrum auctions in 2022. The operators have incurred a lot of capital expenditure in terms of deploying the recently acquired spectrum, and therefore, they would first want to recoup their investments before acquiring further spectrum, according to analysts.

“Given that operators have already acquired $5-10 billion worth of spectrum in the previous auctions towards 5G networks which are yet to be completely utilised, we see limited need for operators to increase their spectrum footprint in the upcoming auctions,” brokerage house Jefferies said in a recent note.

In October last year, Bharti Airtel’s managing director and chief executive officer Gopal Vittal had said that the company would be spending a lot less on the future spectrum auctions as it does not require additional airwaves.

“I would not imagine that the company needs further spectrum for some time to come. The only place where some small chunks of spectrum may be needed is renewable spectrum in three or four circles, but it is a function of the traffic pattern. How much do we need? Do we need it at all? Those discussions are still underway,” Vittal had said during the July-September quarter earnings call.

In the last spectrum auction, Reliance Jio spent Rs 88,078 crore towards 4G/5G spectrum, followed by Bharti Airtel at Rs 43,084 crore, and Vodafone Idea at Rs 18,799 crore.