India’s biggest spectrum auction begins, 5G airwaves worth Rs 4.3 lakh cr on offer

India’s biggest-ever auction of spectrum that carries telephone and internet data signals, began on Tuesday with a total of 72 GHz (gigahertz) of 5G airwaves worth Rs 4.3 lakh crore on offer.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and a unit of billionaire Gautam Adani’s flagship Adani Enterprises are in the race to bid for 5G spectrum, that offers ultra-high speeds (about 10 times faster than 4G), lag-free connectivity, and can enable billions of connected devices to share data in real-time.

In addition to powering ultra-low latency connections, which allow downloading full-length high-quality video or movie to a mobile device in a matter of seconds (even in crowded areas),