The Department of Telecommunications on Tuesday cleared for financial bidding all nine companies that had applied for taking part in the auction of 3G spectrum.
It also cleared the pre-qualification bids of 11 companies for the BWA auction for providing the wireless broadband service (WiMAX).
The nine companies, Bharti Airtel, Aircel, Idea Cellular, Reliance Telecom, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone Essar, Videocon Telecommunications, Etisalat DB Telecom and S Tel, will soon submit their financial bids.
Before the final auction, scheduled for April 9, mock auctions will be held on April 5 and 6. For the 3G service, the government is auctioning three slots in 17 telecom service areas and four in the remaining five circles. Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai will have three private players.
The 11 companies in the fray for BWA are, Bharti Airtel, Aircel, Idea Cellular, Reliance WiMAX Ltd., Tata Communications, Vodafone Essar, Qualcomm Incorporated, Augere (Mauritius) Ltd., Spice Internet, Infotel and Tikona Digital Networks.