By R. Jai Krishna
NEW DELHI--A closely watched auction of telecom bandwidth in
India has concluded with the sale generating 94.07 billion rupees
($1.71 billion) in revenue for the federal government, Telecom
Minister Kapil Sibal said Wednesday.
The local units of Norway's Telenor and U.K.'s Vodafone Group
PLC (VOD.LN), as well as Bharti Airtel Ltd. (532454.BY), Idea
Cellular Ltd. (532822.BY) and Videocon Industries Ltd. (511389.BY)
unit Videocon Telecommunications Ltd. were in the running for the
bandwidth.
All of them have won bandwidth, a senior official in India's
telecom ministry told reporters. He declined to be named.
The auction followed a Supreme Court order earlier this year
cancelling the telecom licenses of several companies. The court
said the first-come first-served policy adopted to allot the
licenses in 2008 was illegal, and ordered the government to take
back the airwaves allocated under the cancelled licenses and
auction them.
Write to R. Jai Krishna at krishna.jai@dowjones.com
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