India’s telecom regulator has cleared the way in which for the following spectrum public sale by placing airwaves price over ₹2 trillion on the block, whereas recommending steep cuts in reserve costs to enhance participation from cash-strained operators. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has advisable as much as a 20-30% discount in reserve value for the spectrum in comparison with the earlier public sale in 2024.
Greater than 62% or about ₹1.3 trillion price spectrum is attributed to the 600MHz band, which went unsold within the earlier spectrum auctions as a consequence of restricted machine assist. The authority has diminished the reserve value for this band by 17% in comparison with the 2022 public sale, and eased cost phrases and rollout obligations, underscoring issues that precious airwaves have remained idle regardless of surging knowledge demand.
In spectrum auctions, the reserve value acts as the ground worth fastened by the federal government to make sure that airwaves will not be bought beneath a predetermined minimal benchmark.
In all, vacant airwaves of greater than 11,700MHz will probably be on the block throughout 9 bands—600MHz, 800MHz, 900MHz, 1,800MHz, 2,100MHz, 2,300MHz, 2,500MHz, 26GHz, and three,300MHz. Additional, the public sale can even function ₹17,940-crore new 5G spectrum within the 37-40GHz band, which the regulator had accepted in February 2025.
The public sale spans low-, mid- and high-frequency spectrum bands—with decrease bands equivalent to 600MHz providing wider protection, mid-bands like 1,800MHz and three,300MHz supporting balanced 4G and 5G capability, and high-frequency millimetre wave bands equivalent to 26GHz and 37–40GHz enabling ultra-fast 5G speeds in dense city areas.
The advice from the Trai to the division of telecommunications (DoT) has come at a time when the telecom sector has largely turn out to be a duopoly with two gamers—Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel—occupying 76.5% of the market share by way of subscribers.
The third non-public telecom operator—Vodafone Thought—has been dropping subscribers and is struggling to compete owing to its weak monetary place.
The DoT will now look at Trai’s suggestions and determine the following date of auctions after bearing in mind the urge for food of the operators for a profitable public sale.
“The spectrum within the frequency bands recognized for IMT (worldwide cellular telecommunication) ought to be auctioned on telecom circle/ metro space foundation with a validity interval of 20 years,” Trai mentioned in a launch, including {that a} calibrated discount within the reserve value could be tried, in an effort to enhance the participation of telecom operators and improve aggressive dynamics to facilitate productive utilization of the idle.
Trai has additionally advisable that operators collaborating in auctions will be unable to amass greater than 35% of the entire out there spectrum, in a bid to make sure competitors available in the market.
It has additionally eased phrases for deploying the 600MHz band by the telecom operators. “Whereas the spectrum cost could also be levied for a interval of 20 years, the validity interval of the spectrum (in 600Mhz band) ought to be elevated by 4 years,” Trai mentioned, recommending no rollout obligations for the preliminary 4 years for the band.
After paying 5% upfront cost of the bid quantity for the 600MHz inside 10 calendar days from the federal government’s intimation, telecom operators can even be given a cost moratorium for 4 years after which they will make the remaining spectrum cost for the band in 19 installments.
That is totally different from the cost phrases advisable for the older bands in 800MHz, 900MHz, 1,800MHz, 2,100MHz, 2,300MHz, 2,500MHz, 26GHz, 3,300MHz, and many others, the place two choices—full or half upfront cost choice, and 20 equal annual instalments choice—have been advisable by the regulator.
“Any discount in reserve value is all the time welcome and good for each operators and customers. The federal government’s goal from the spectrum public sale shouldn’t be to become profitable however to cost sufficient to cowl administrative bills,” mentioned Satya N. Gupta, former principal advisor at Trai.
In keeping with Gupta, the 600MHz spectrum buy will probably be a key occasion to trace because the band has been unsold within the earlier public sale. “A leisure in cost phrases for the band is being proposed with an intent to advertise the ecosystem of the band and its utilization,” he mentioned.
The 600MHz band is valued for its long-range protection and robust capacity to penetrate buildings, making it significantly helpful for rural networks and indoor connectivity. Nonetheless, it has gone unsold in previous auctions primarily as a consequence of steep reserve costs and the absence of a mature machine and tools ecosystem in India to assist deployments on this band.
The background
Within the earlier spectrum public sale in 2024, 10,522.35MHz of spectrum with a reserve value of ₹96,238.45 crore was placed on the block.
Of this, 141.40MHz of airwaves price ₹11,341 crore had been bought. In 2022, earlier than the launch of 5G providers, of the 72,098MHz of spectrum price ₹4.3 trillion provided, operators acquired 51,236MHz of spectrum price over ₹1.5 trillion.
6GHz not on provide
In keeping with the demand of huge tech firms and Bharti Airtel, the regulator has advisable that the higher 6GHz band (6,425-6,725MHz and seven,025-7,125MHz) shouldn’t be put up on the market within the forthcoming public sale. To make certain, Reliance Jio needed the federal government to deliver the band within the upcoming public sale however Bharti Airtel didn’t need the identical in absence of machine ecosystem and use circumstances.
“Presently, the IMT ecosystem within the 6GHz band is at a nascent stage and only a few international locations like China, South Korea, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, have assigned this band for IMT based mostly providers. In view of the above, applicable time for the public sale of this band is required to be explored contemplating the much less developed ecosystem and availability of solely 400MHz spectrum in a fragmented method,” Trai mentioned.
The regulator has additionally requested the telecom division to right away provoke motion for taking again spectrum held with telecom service suppliers beneath insolvency, and produce it within the upcoming public sale.
This advice comes after the Supreme Courtroom on 13 February held that the airwaves can’t be bought beneath an insolvency course of. The ruling dashed banks’ hopes of recovering cash lent to bankrupt telecom operators equivalent to Reliance Communications (RCom) and Aircel.
In its suggestions, Trai has additionally requested the federal government to think about incentivising the operators to develop their cellular community protection in areas that don’t have any cellular community protection and will not be coated beneath the schemes of Digital Bharat Nidhi Fund to bridge the digital divide.
“As soon as the spectrum public sale is concluded, the profitable bidders of the spectrum ought to be permitted to go for a discount within the spectrum price (as much as 10% of the public sale decided value (ADP). This selection ought to be out there for all Licensed Service Areas and for all frequency bands,” Trai mentioned.
It added that for the discount within the spectrum price, the operator ought to deploy new distinctive tower websites to offer cellular broadband providers (utilizing 4G/ 5G applied sciences) utilizing the spectrum in any of its frequency bands on the places recognized by DoT inside a selected interval of say one yr from the date of identification of such places.
To ask better participation within the spectrum auctions for non-telcos, the authority has advisable that the federal government ought to put aside some spectrum for Web Service Suppliers (ISPs), Machine-to-Machine (M2M) suppliers and Captive Non-Public Networks (CNPN).
After identification of appropriate IMT frequency band(s) to be put aside for ISPs, M2M suppliers and CNPN, DoT ought to ship a reference to Trai for searching for suggestions on the phrases and circumstances together with reserve value for project of such spectrum, it mentioned.
M2M refers to related units speaking robotically, whereas CNPNs are non-public 4G or 5G networks arrange by enterprises for their very own inner use.
For brand spanking new entrants within the upcoming public sale particularly in Jammu and Kashmir and North East circles the regulator has advisable a discount within the net-worth requirement from ₹100 crore per Licensed Service Space to ₹50 crore in J&Ok and from ₹50 crore to ₹25 crore every in North East.
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