New Delhi, August 27: The wait for next generation telephony is finally over with an empowered group of ministers Thursday fixing the base price of third generation (3G) radio waves at Rs.3,500 crore. It had been earlier pegged at Rs.4,040 crore.
The ministerial group also fixed of Rs.1,750 crore as the base price for pan-India WiMax or wireless Internet spectrum.
The government is hopeful of completing the spectrum auction within 90 days of the announcement of the base price and of earning about Rs.25,000 crore from the auction of 3G and WiMax spectrums.
“I do feel that the government of India, putting together 3G and Wimax, will easily get Rs.25,000 crore,” said Communications and IT minister A. Raja after a meeting of the ministerial group.
The mandate of the empowered group, which was set up under Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and includes Raja, was to fix the base price for the spectrum auction and the number of operators to be allowed in each telecom circle for offering 3G services.
The ministerial group said that only five slots in the 3G spectrum would be auctioned, with one slot already been allotted to state-run telecom operators Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam.
Raja said with only four slots being auctioned among private players, the bids are likely to go higher than estimated, yielding additional revenues as a result.
For WiMax, only three slots will be sold, he told reporters.
The ministerial group lowered the base price to Rs.3,500 crore for 3G spectrum, from the earlier level of Rs.4,040 crore decided upon informally by Raja and Mukherjee, following representations from industry.
The telecom ministry will now announce the detailed programme for the auction, which will include pre-bid conference in the next few weeks.
Third generation telephony services allow faster connectivity than what is available now, and will enable applications like Internet TV, video-on-demand, audio-video calls and high-speed data exchange.
Apart from Mukherjee and Raja, the other members of the ministerial group are Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Home Minister P. Chidambaram, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni, Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
—IANS