NEW DELHI: The upward spiral in the Bandwidth Access (BWA) auction appears to have caught speed even as the bidding is expected to close sometime this week, with a pan-India total touching Rs 115.18 billion.

After 102 rounds on the 13th day, the bids for Mumbai and Delhi remained at the top with Rs 19.93 billion and Rs 19.42 billion respectively.
 
Tamil Nadu closed at Rs 17.83 billion, Karnataka was at Rs 14.11 billion, Andhra Pradesh at Rs 9.31 billion; and. Kolkata clocked Rs 5.23 billion.

While Punjab closed at Rs 3.32 billion, Kerala was at Rs 2.25 billion; Madhya Pradesh and Haryana closed at Rs 1.03 billion each, Rajasthan at Rs 908.1 million, and Bihar at Rs 860.8 million; Orissa clocked Rs 550.8 million, Assam closed at Rs 285.1 million; the North-East and Jammu and Kashmir closed at Rs 183.9 million each, and Himachal Pradesh was at 180.3 million. 
 
The bids for five service centres remained unchanged: the rest of Maharashtra at Rs 9.16 billion; Gujarat at Rs 5.73 billion; West Uttar Pradesh at Rs 1.78 billion; East Uttar Pradesh at Rs 1.24 billion, and West Bengal at Rs 643 million.

The rest of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Kolkata, Punjab, East and West Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are unlikely to see any increase with no applications for price increment for tomorrow’s rounds.

Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and North-East will also see only minimal increase with bids of just over Rs one million each.

The telecom operators in the race are Aircel, Augere (Mauritius) Limited, Bharti Airtel, Infotel Broadband Services Private Limited, Qualcomm Incorporated, Reliance WiMax Limited, Spice Internet Service, Provider Private Limited, Tata Communications Internet Services Limited, Tikona Digital Networks Private Limited and Vodafone Essar Limited.

The successful bidders would be allowed to start commercial operations from 1 September.