All-India 3G bids touch $1.78b in online auction

New Delhi: Bids for an all-India licence to offer faster wireless services reached Rs79 billion ($1.78 billion, Dh6.5 billion) on the 13th day of an auction, the department of telecommunication said on its website on Saturday.

Nine mobile-phone carriers including Vodafone and Bharti Airtel are vying for the spectrum to offer third-generation (3G) services in the second-largest wireless market by subscribers.

The government is auctioning spectrum for operating 3G services in India's 22 designated tele-phone zones. It plans to sell 93 licences to provide high-speed data to mobile phones and computers that may raise about Rs500 billion, helping reduce the nation's fiscal deficit.

The Internet-based auction could take as long as two weeks, according to Dan Maldoom, an economist at DotEcon Ltd., one of the two advisers to the government. NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd. is the other adviser. A pan-India licence can cost bidders as much as $2 billion, according to Shubham Majumder, regional head of telecommunications research at Macquarie Group Ltd.