The Telecom Regulatory of India has recommended 10 percent of hike in the price for the next round of spectrum auction for the 1,800 Mhz band. The regulator also stated that the auction will not be conducted for the Maharashtra and West Bengal circles due to the unavailability of full spectrum. As reported by PTI, the price recommendations will still be higher by around 10 per cent while comparing the forthcoming auction of airways in the Licence Service Areas (LSAs) with the earlier one. The pricing will be applicable to 18 out of 22 service area as spectrum in this premium band is not available in Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata service area.

The regulator has suggested the price of Rs 3,004 crore per megahertz for premium 900 Mhz band, in which mobile signal covered about twice more area than 1800 Mhz. The spectrum auction is to be held for airwaves in the 900 MHz and the list of bidders include Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications as their licenses are set to expire in 2015-16.

The Government is likely to auction 184 Mhz in the 900 Mhz band and 140 Mhz in the 1800 Mhz band and the other unsold airwaves in the upcoming February auction. Although, the government is planning to keep 8.2 Mhz of spectrum as Defence band which leaves only 104 Mhz spectrum available for auction. The regulator also used various approaches and derived the average expected valuation. Apart from this, TRAI also compared the prices achieved in the February auction and suggested to increase the prices.

As reported by PTI, TRAI said, “The Authority recommends that the average expected valuation of 1800 MHz spectrum should be the higher of the two figures – average expected valuation based on simple mean or the price realized in February 2014 auction in each licenced service area (LSA).”