5G auction day 5 concludes, will continue for few more days: Vaishnaw

India had drawn bids totalling about $19 billion for 5G spectrum and the process is likely to continue for the coming few days, telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday.

Reliance Industries’ Jio, rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea, as well as billionaire Gautam Adani’s Adani Enterprises Ltd were all among the bidders for 5G airwaves.

Vaishnaw said he expects the rollout of 5G – which government says can provide data speeds about 10 times faster than 4G – by October this year.

On Friday, seven rounds of bidding took place, and incrementally Rs 231.6 crore was recorded. In all, 23 rounds of bidding were conducted till Friday.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and a unit of billionaire Gautam Adani’s flagship Adani Enterprises are in the race to bid for 5G spectrum, which offers speeds about 10 times faster than 4G, lag-free connectivity, and can enable billions of connected devices to share data in real-time.

After a flying start on Tuesday that saw players pouring in Rs 1.45 lakh crore on the first day, the numbers inched up incrementally over Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as Jio and Airtel engaged in intense bidding in UP East circle for 1800 MHz band.

In all, 72 GHz (gigahertz) of radiowaves worth at least Rs 4.3 lakh crore is on the block. The auction is being held for spectrum in various low (600 MHz, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, 2500 MHz), mid (3300 MHz) and high (26 GHz) frequency bands.

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