India's four largest operators could be spending a combined 740 billion rupees ($11.9 billion) on the upcoming spectrum auctions.
The Economic Timesquotes brokerage HSBC as estimating that Vodafone India will spend up to 240 billion rupees on the upcoming auction, becoming the biggest spender.
Airtel and Idea are each expected to bid up to 220 billion rupees, while Reliance Communications is projected to bid up to 60 billion rupees.
The incumbents are likely to prioritize 900-MHz spectrum to augment their 2G licenses over acquiring more 3G spectrum, the report states. But this could lead to operators such as RCom significantly overpaying for the spectrum, HSBC warned.
Smaller operators and more recent market entrants such as Uninor are meanwhile predicted to attempt to acquire more 3G spectrum in areas where they currently lack licenses.
The Indian government recently decided to auction just 5 MHz of 2.1-GHz 3G spectrum during the initial February auction, leaving 10 MHz to be auctioned at a later date. HSBC believes that this scarcity could set an inflated pricing benchmark for the remainder of the spectrum.