The Centre on Friday said it has completed assigment of airwaves to telecom companies who bidded successfully in the spectrum auction held last month. Frequency assignment letters were issued to successful bidders today, a release said.
The government also accepted the request of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd for assignment of immediately available unsold spectrum blocks in place of spectrum blocks in the same band and licensed service areas (LSA) assigned to them from later dates, it said.
"An amount of Rs 2,306.97 crore (Rs 157.38 crore from M/s Bharti and Rs 2,149.59 crore from M/s Reliance Jio) has been received immediately by the government, rather than in August/September, 2021," the release said.
The government had sold 855.60 MHz of spectrum in 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, and 2300 MHz bands during the auction. Vodafaone Idea had also participated in the auction along with Airtel and Reliance Jio.
"The frequency assignment was accompanied by a frequency harmonisation exercise, whereby spectrum blocks assigned to telecom service providers (TSPs) in the current spectrum auction have been made contiguous with the spectrum blocks already held by them, wherever possible, in various bands in different LSAs," the Department of Telecom said.
Harmonisation facilitates more efficient utilisation of spectrum held by TSPs, leading to improved quality of service for consumers.
While Reliance Jio had acquired 488.35 MHz of airwaves, Bharti Airtel had acquired 355.45 MHz of spectrum in the auction. Vodafone Idea had got 11.80 MHz of spectrum. The total amount payable by the successful bidders for the total quantity of spectrum acquired was Rs 77,820.81 crore.
"Of this, an amount of Rs 21,918.47 crore was received as upfront payment from the TSPs on 18th March, 2021, as per terms and conditions of the notice inviting applications," the release said.