A consensus between Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Telecom Minister A Raja was arrived today as the two met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the approval of the reserve price, based on which the process of bidding would start soon.
Initially six private operators apart from state owned MTNL and BSNL would be allowed to offer 3G services that enables high speed internet, videos and many other value-added services on mobile phone.
NEW DELHI: Paving the way for unleashing of next generation mobile telephony, the government today fixed reserve price of Rs 4040 crore for auction of 3G spectrum, a move that would help it garner at least Rs 32,320 crore.
A source close to the development said the issue would now go to empowered group of ministers for fine-tuning and hopefully the programme for bidding and other details would get a nod soon.
Raja had met Mukherjee earlier this week too as the Finance Ministry was suggesting the doubling of reserve price from Rs 2020 crore being favoured by Department of Telecom and hence the two ministries had got engaged in a discussion for consensus.
While the government would get at least Rs 24,240 crore from six operators that are chosen after the bids, Psis MTNL and BSNL would shell out another Rs 8080 crore, source said.
After the issue is cleared by EGOM, the Telecom Ministry will announce the detailed programme for the auction which will include pre-bid conference in the next couple of weeks, source said.
Sources said the auction may start by the middle of August.
The Telecom Ministry had earlier recommended a reserve or minimum price of Rs 2020 crore which was not accepted by the Ministry of Finance who had asked the Telecom Ministry to double it.
The likely contenders for the 3G spectrum may include Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communication, Tatas and a few other new private telecom operators.
Similarly, on the lines of 3G the Government will also auction spectrum for wireless broadband services known as WiMax.
The Telecom Ministry had recommended pan-India reserve price of Rs 1,010 crore for wireless broadband services whereas Ministry of Finance had doubled it in this case too.
Its was, however, not immediately ascertained where this also figured in the discussions with the Prime Minister today.
Sources, however, said there could be a consensus on this also.
Sorece: Economic Times
Friday, June 19, 2009
3G may open new biz stream for IT cos
Jessica Mehroin Irani & Ranjit Shinde
MUMBAI
IF third generation (3G) is the next big opportunity for the domestic telecom operators, it is also expected to open a whole new business stream for IT companies. 3G integrates voice, data and video on a single platform, which in turn allows video downloads and other applications that require high speed connectivity.
IT industry trackers believe that 3G will see a slew of orders for IT companies in key areas such as integration with operational systems and their linkage to internal networks. “With the advent of 3G, there will be large use of data services on both voice and video. The IT infrastructure such as data centres will play an important role,” said Gartner principal research analyst Nareshchandra Singh. As the telcos will want to outsource data centre management, this will provide opportunities for the IT vendors.
Managed services and platform solutions are the two major areas of 3G deliverables for the IT players. Vendors including IBM, Wipro and Tech Mahindra already provide end-to-end IT services to telcos and are expected to be the major beneficiaries. “IBM has a service delivery platform to efficiently launch these new 3G/data services and link them to underlying network capabilities,” said IBM VP communications (growth markets) Tim Greisinger. It has also built capabilities to integrate mobile internet services with the telecom operators’ existing operational systems, including billing, provisioning and CRM.
The 3G and broadband opportunities in the Indian telecom space have also attracted IT players such as Patni Computer Systems, which have been providing 3G related services to global telecom operators. “We have technological frameworks built for 3G and broadband to provide services in areas of service fulfilment, revenue assurance and billing,” said Patni Computers VP Siddhartha Kataki.
While the exact size of 3G opportunity for IT vendors is still not clear as it largely depends on the scope and approach of service providers, Mr. Kataki says that it could be at least 10% of the total proposed capital expenditure by telecom operators. Motilal Oswal, in a recent report, has estimated Reliance Communications’ 3G capex (including spectrum and rollout) to be Rs 7,000 crore.
IBM expects the contract size to be large, depending on the telecom provider. “Contract sizes range from tens of thousands of US dollars to multiple millions, depending on the scope of decisions and the extent to which the service provider relies upon and shares risks,” said Mr Greisinger.
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