Ravi Shankar Prasad, the newly-appointed Telecom Minister on Monday said that India will hold spectrum auction for 5G and other bands this year itself. Taking charge, his priority will be the revival of state-owned MTNL and BSNL. The Department of Telecommunications will be auctioning the 4G and 5G spectrum by October that will carry out the sales at prices recommended by the regulator.
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A senior government official went on to say that telecoms were ready for the next round of spectrum sale despite the TRAI-recommended prices for 5G supported bands to be high.
The official said, asking not to be identified, " The committee (looking into the regulator’s recommendations) has agreed that all available spectrum will have to be put up for auction, which we will take up to the DCC (Digital Communications Commission) on June 13".
The auction would be India’s largest so far, with 8,293.95 MHz of airwaves at an estimated total base price of Rs 5.77 lakh crore expected to go under the hammer, which is 3.5 times the 2,354 MHz of spectrum offered at the previous auction in 2016 that had a total base price of Rs 5.63 lakh crore.
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