The auction of wireless broadband (BWA) threw up a big surprise on Friday with the little known Infotel Broadband winning pan-India licence.
Bharti won a BWA license for four circles, Aircel for eight circles and US-based technology player Qualcomm in four circles.
Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communication, Tata, Vodafone and Idea Cellular failed to win even a single band in any circle.
Infotel Broadband, promoted by Mr Anant Nahata, son of Mr Mahendra Nahata, managing director of Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL) won the licenses in all the 22 telecom circles. However, Mr Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd announced that it was acquiring Infotel Broadband within hours of its emerging the winner in the BWA auction.
Infotel Broadband was promoted by Mr Anant Nahata in 2007 with the objective of becoming a national service provider in the broadband market in India. The company has an internet service provider licence.
In fact, the Nahata family has got licences for other telecom ventures in the past, which was later resold. Mr Nahata had sold their 36 per cent stake in all-India mobile licence-holder Dat-acom to Videocon’s Venugopal Dhoot. Videocon started offering mobile services from March. Mr Nahata is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the managing director of Exicom Tele-Systems, a company which manufactures power equipment. Other ventures promoted by him are engaged in manufacture of transmission equipment and providing project implementation and engineering services for telecom operators. Only two bands of BWA spectrum were offered for auction. One national bands were won by Infotel Broadband, a mix of operators won the other block.
As all the telecom operators had bid heavily in the 3G, they may have found it difficult to again bid high for BWA. “We decided to step away from the current BWA auction when prices went beyond rational levels owing considerably to the artificial scarcity of spectrum with just two slots available and 11 bidders,” said Vodafone.
Infact, no existing telecom player won the BWA licence for Delhi and Mumbai circles. There were 11 players in the race to acquire the BWA licence.