One of India’s major operators has reportedly pulled out of the country’s impending spectrum auctions, meaning that there are now no participants bidding on CDMA frequencies.
Tata Teleservices was reportedly planning on bidding for licences in three of the telecom circles where it currently operators. The licences that it holds for these areas are due to be annulled following the Supreme Court’s ruling that all 2G permits awarded in 2008 were invalid due to anomalies in the issuing process.
The only other operator that would have bid for CDMA spectrum was Videocon; this firm dropped out of the auction some time ago. The country’s largest CDMA operator, Reliance Communications, has thus far not made any attempt to enter the auction process.
Tata currently provides both CDMA and GSM services, although evidently it has limited plans to continue its CDMA offering.