BANGALORE -(Dow Jones)- The bids for bandwidth for third-generation mobile services for all of India jumped more than fourfold to 158.14 billion rupees ($3.51 billion) per slot at the end of 31 days of auctions, and after 172 rounds, the Department of Telecommunications said on its website late Saturday.

The starting price for a pan-India slot was INR35 billion.

All of the country’s 22 service areas received bids.

The auctions will resume Monday with bids for each pan-India slot starting at about INR254.56 billion, the department said.

Delhi became the most expensive service area, with three bids each at INR30.33 billion for the three slots available. Mumbai followed with three bids for the three available slots at about INR29.99 billion each, data from the department showed. The starting price for Delhi and Mumbai was INR3.2 billion.

Punjab and Orissa saw two excess bids each at about INR2.57 billion and INR844.8 million for the three slots available. Kolkata and western Uttar Pradesh saw one excess bid each at INR4.88 billion and INR4.89 billion.

The Indian government is auctioning three bandwidth slots for 3G services in each of 17 telecom service areas and four in each of the remaining five areas.

The successful bidders will be able to offer 3G services on a commercial basis from Sept. 1.

Nine local mobile phone operators including Bharti Airtel Ltd. (532454.BY), Reliance Communications Ltd. (532712.BY), Vodafone Essar Ltd. and Idea Cellular Ltd. (532822.BY) are bidding for the bandwidth.

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