Idea, Reliance fuelled the spectrum price war

Vodafone and Idea merger can be traced to the bidding war in a large number of auctions

There have been 17 auctions of telecom air waves since 2010, an awesome number by a government anywhere in the world for distribution of common resources for a sector. Monday's announcement of the merger between Vodafone and Idea can be traced to the bidding war in these auctions, mostly between Idea Cellular and Reliance Jio.

While much has been written about how the department of telecommunications kept spectrum prices high, the bidding war has often not been tracked in detail. It has also guided the pushback from the companies whenever they have perceived government interference in their pricing plans, like