NEW DELHI: Even a month after a month of bidding, the 3G auction shows no signs of stopping though it has slowed down to a certain extent with the bids coming only for the major centres.

Mumbai remained at the top of the bids for the 3G auction even on the 30th day, as the overall bids stood at just over Rs 154.16 billion after 167 rounds today.

Mumbai closed at Rs 29.10 billion, with Delhi was at Rs 28.86 billion.
 
Tamil Nadu closed at Rs 14.65 billion, the rest of Maharashtra was at Rs 12.45 billion, and Andhra Pradesh at Rs 12.56 billion. West Uttar Pradesh went up to Rs 4.70 billion, Kolkata to Rs 4.64 billion, East Uttar Pradesh to Rs 3.30 billion, Rajasthan to Rs 2.85 billion, Kerala to Rs 2.80 billion, Punjab to Rs 2.26 billion, Bihar to Rs 1.75 billion, Orissa to Rs 688.3 million, the North-East rose to Rs 398.8 million, Assam went up to Rs 391 million, and Himachal Pradesh was at Rs 321.3 million.

The bids for Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, West Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir remained unchanged. 
 
With no applications for price increment for tomorrow, the bids for eleven service centres are expected to slow down. These are Mumbai, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Rest of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, and Jammu and Kashmir. Some other service centres like Assam, Himachal Pradesh, and the North-East are also unlikely to see much increase with the price increment for tomorrow’s bid at Rs 39,000 or less.

The telecom operators in the race are Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Etisalat DB Telecom, Idea Cellular, Reliance, S Tel, Tata Teleservices, Videocon Telecommunications and Vodafone Essar.

The successful bidders would be allowed to start commercial 3G operations from 1 September.