Spectrum Auction: RJio, Airtel, Idea Give Highest EMD. Aircel & Tata Disqualify For New Airwaves
Department of Telecommunication have yesterday published list of applicants that have pre-qualified for Spectrum Auction to be conducted on March 5th for 2100 MHz, 1800 MHz, 900 MHz and 800 MHz bands.
In the paper published Reliance Jio Infocomm have deposited highest Earnest Money Deposit followed by Bharti Airtel and Ideal Cellular ltd.
Interestingly, Aircel Ltd. and Tata Teleservices which operate Tata Docomo brand have been disqualified from bidding from new Airwaves because they have shown negative networth of the company.
Here is the list of applicants with details:
Aircel has been disqualified from bidding in such bands where they do not have spectrum in that service area. It also means that Aircel cannot bid for any new airwaves in circles where they do not already operate.
The same is true for Tata Teleservices as well – in addition to this they will not be allowed to bid in 3 service areas including Assam, North East and Jammu & Kashmir.
According to the auction rules, an operator interesting in bidding for new airwaves or new service area should have networth of minimum Rs. 100 crores, which both Tata as well as Aircel do not have.
Bharti Airtel stands tall among other operators when it comes to their networth. Their networth currently stands at Rs. 73,069.60 crores, nearly three times as much as second placed Reliance Jio, who have declared their networth of Rs. 23,029.58 crores. Interestingly, Reliance Jio has not even started offering any services and yet their networth is so high. This is because they currently hold Pan-India BWA license which itself is worth nearly Rs. 13,000 crores.
Incase, you want to know what is networth, it is simply total assets minus total liabilities of a company and is generally used to gauge the value of a company.
We are now less than 10 days away from the spectrum auction, and looking at the EMD’s by various Telco’s, it is clear that Reliance Jio will be the most aggressive bidder of the lot!
