Govt received bids worth Rs1.49 lakh crore in spectrum sale, auction may continue till Thursday: Ashwini Vaishnaw

The government has raised Rs1,49,454 crore from the auction of 5G spectrum at the end of day two, and the sale will continue on Thursday, with telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnav.

"700 MHz has seen good response, It has been sold this time. Good response in other low and mid bands as well," Vaishnaw told reporters on Wednesday, which saw another five rounds of the auction, taking the total rounds to nine.

He added that the sale will most likely end on Thursday.

On day one, the government netted around Rs1.45 lakh crore, driven by the 700 MHz band which saw bidding for the first time, along with strong interest in the mid-band (3.3-3.67 GHz) and high-band (26 GHz) airwaves. All bids were at base price.

All three private telcos — Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea – are said to have bid for mid- and high-band airwaves as they set the stage to launch services which can offer 10 times higher mobile internet speeds than 4G, industry executives and government officials said.

New entrant Adani Data Networks, a unit of the diversified Adani Group, is expected to have put in bids only for the high band, also known as the millimetre wave (mmWave), for use in its captive networks.

Jio is said to have bid for the 700 Mhz band.