The auction for the 5G spectrum concluded for the third day on Thursday and the government received bids worth Rs 1,49,623 crore.
The bidding will continue on the fourth day on Friday, 29 July, Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told the media.
On Thursday, bids worth Rs 1,49,623 crore have been received, which is slightly higher than the Rs 1,49,454 crore-worth bids that were received on Wednesday, the second day of the auction
Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Idea and Gautam Adani are vying to buy the 5G airwaves.
The auction is being held for spectrum in various low (600 MHz, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 2,300 MHz), mid (3,300 MHz) and high (26 GHz) frequency bands. A total of 72 GHz (gigahertz) of radiowaves worth at least Rs 4.3 lakh crore is up for bidding.
The Department of Telecom is targeting to allocate the spectrum by mid-August and 5G services are expected to start rolling out by September-October 2022.