India on Friday concluded 137 rounds of an auction to award spectrum for third generation (3G) telecom services in the country, with the government's provisional revenue from the sale of airwaves reaching Rs.48,677.47 crore ($10.7 billion) and nationwide licence price crossing Rs.12,000 crore ($2.6 billion) mark.

According to a senior official in the Department of Telecommunications, “The revenues from 3G auction alone will be over Rs 50,000 crore. The auction is likely to be completed in a day or two, as the demand in some circles is still high.” The Pan-India bid for 3G licence was Rs 12,068.94 crore today, up 244.82 per cent from the base price of Rs 3,500 crore.

Slots for three-four players are available in each of the 22 circles into which the country has been geographically divided for the 3G services, which will facilitate faster connectivity and enable applications such as Internet TV, video-on-demand, audio-video calls and high-speed data exchange.

Nine telecom companies - Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices, Aircel, Etisalat, S Tel and Videocon Telecommunications - are participating in the online auction.

See link 3G Auction Update: 7th May 2010 for latest details. Refer India 3G Auction Update - bid up by 172% for earlier updates.