Allow all telecom players to take part in proposed 2G auction: Vodafone India

2G auction

Vodafone India Ltd. said Thursday it wants any auction of bandwidth likely to be held after the recent cancellation of 122 telecom licenses to be open to all operators, bringing into focus a sharp but expected divide among the old and new players jostling for the scarce resource.

“This [opening the auction to all operators] will ensure the most efficient allocation of the spectrum, and is necessary to derive a fair market price,” the local unit of U.K. mobile giant Vodafone Group PLC (VOD.LN) said.

The comments from India’s third-largest mobile phone company by users are in response to a consultation paper floated by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, which earlier this month invited initial views by Feb. 15 on framing rules to auction bandwidth for basic mobile-phone services.

New operators like Sistema Shyam and Uninor have been pushing for exclusion of incumbents in the proposed auction saying old operators should not be allowed to participate.

Vodafone India and other old operators like Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular on the other hand, who haven’t suffered from the ruling, have been resisting this plea.