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October 1 was the last day for companies to apply for operating telecom services in India and over 400 firms have already applied with the telecom ministry to offer telecom services in the world’s fastest growing telecom market.

Over 200 applications were filed within the past couple of days alone. Prominent amont those that applied were American telecom giant AT&T and Verizon. A host other companies from real estate, IT and Retail have applied for UASL (Unified Access Service Licence) to offer wireline, wireless and broadband services in India where over eight million new connections were added last month. India still has one of the lowest telecom penetrations in the world with only 18 per cent population having access to telephones—both wireline and mobile.

AT&T has partnered Mahindra, India’s largest utility vehicle maker while Verizon, it is learned, has tied up with India’s largest consumer durables maker Videocon.

AT&T was the first foreign player to get permission to offer domestic and international long distance licence last year. India has become a hot property among telecom companies as it not just a fast growing market but also a market that offers immense potential. In contrast China has been adding only five million new connections each month while it has almost reached a point of saturation. For European and American telecom companies, India promises a great reason to expand as places are also saturated.

Among the list of companies that have entered the sector are DLF, Parshvnath, IndiaBulls, Omaxe, Unitech and Jaypee Group that are the largest real estate firms in the country. Among the retailer, it is the Future Griup, currently the largest retailer in India.

What’s even more exciting is the fact for Rs. 1,700 crore (USD 650 million), applicants will get free 2G spectrum with a pan-India mobile licence — 4.4 MHz in the case of GSM players and 2.5 MHz in the case of CDMA operators.

There are already over 60 firms waiting in the pipeline to get permission to launch all India services. Some of them are regional players such as Spice, HFCL, Shyam Telecom, BPL Mobile. India is divided into 22 circles (each state and four metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta, classify as a circle or zone.)

Each circle in India currently has seven operators-four GSM and three CDMA. Due to such heavy competition, mobile prices in India are the lowest in the world.

According to DoT (Department of Telecom) officials, permission will be given to the applicants based on first come first serve basis and after screening the antecedents of all applicants.