4G spectrum sale: Most shopping done in round 1, ‘clean & boring’ auction ends middle of day 2

Mumbai: “A clean but very boring auction.” That’s how a senior telecom executive summed up the 4G spectrum sale that concluded on Tuesday without any nervous excitement or aggression as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea calmly put in their bids.
The telecom sector’s most watched event – the spectrum auction – ended halfway through the second day, making it the second shortest sale after the one in 2013 that lasted four hours.
“It was all done mostly in the first round itself, and, after that, we were just going through the motions,” said another senior executive at one of the three telcos.
He harked back to the bygone days when the auctions went on till late in the evening when many players severely competed to outbid one another or even up the prices so that the rival had to pay more.