Two of India's biggest telecom players, Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications (RCom) have applied for the broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum. The two companies have already applied for 3G spectrum.

Till now, three telecom companies have already submitted their applications. They are- Vodafone, Tata Communications and Tikona. While the first two are national players, the third one is the Mumbai-based regional player.

Besides these, the US-based chipset maker, Qualcomm has also applied for the spectrum.

Friday was the last date for submitting application for both 3G spectrum as well as BWA spectrum.

Auctioning for the BWA spectrum will start from April 11. And the government has kept a reserved price of Rs. 1,750 crore, which would be covering all of India.

Only two-blocks with 2MHz capacity spectrum will be up for auctioning for each circle. There are a few states where four slots will be up for sale.

BWA spectrum is important since it is necessary for using Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (Wimax) service.

This service helps the user to have access to Internet through laptop and/or mobile.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has asked the government to clear the long-awaited auctioning of 3G by the end of next month.