Virgin & Spice bid for MTNL 3G franchise deal

British Virgin Mobile and BK Modi promoted Spice Group made a bid for MTNL’s franchise deal to provide 3G services in Mumbai and Delhi. The bidder will be finalised in a month’s time. . Looking for a partner with great expertise to kick start its 3G deployments, MTNL started its bidding in July to give a tough fight to its competitors like Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar. The government has announced the spectrum auction base price and the auction is likely to take place soon. This involves sharing of cost, risk and reward, with the partner bringing expertise and equipment funding to the table. Spice Group, which had sold off its mobile services business to Idea Cellular, has business interests in telecom, mobile software and retail stores. Virgin Mobile, on other hand, is owned by Virgin Group of the UK. It already has a franchise agreement in India with Tata Teleservices for providing telecom services under the Virgin Mobile brand to the youth segment.