April 15 (Bloomberg) -- Bids for an all-India license to offer faster wireless services reached 47.4 billion rupees ($1.1 billion) on the fifth day, the government said today.
Nine mobile-phone carriers including Vodafone Group Plc, the world’s largest, and Bharti Airtel Ltd., India’s biggest, are vying for the spectrum to offer third-generation services in the world’s second-largest wireless market.
The government is auctioning spectrum for operating 3G services in India’s 22 designated telephone zones, according to a statement on the telecom department’s Web site. It plans to sell 93 licenses to provide high-speed data to mobile phones and computers that may raise an estimated 500 billion rupees, helping reduce the nation’s fiscal deficit.
The bids for an all-India license do not include the states of Assam, Orissa and Jammu and Kashmir, which have received no bids so far.
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.
The government will issue daily updates on the bidding and all the data collected from bidders will be made public after the auction is over.
--With assistance by Saikat Chatterjee in New Delhi. Editors: Abhay Singh, Mark Williams