Loss is guaranteed in the dollar auction game.

"Kotak Institutional Equities has an interesting report that draws parallels between the dollar auction game and the Indian wireless sector," wrote M Philipose. "The dollar auction game was used by economist Martin Shubik, a pioneer of game theory, to illustrate a concept known as 'escalation of commitment'. Since the highest bidder wins the dollar, and the second highest bidder loses all that he/she has bid, those playing the game tend to keep bidding higher amounts to avoid losing what they have already bet." This could be the fate of our telecom companies. "Every passing day, they increase their bids to gain a higher share of the market." "In the three headed slugfest between Bharti Airtel Ltd, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd and Vodafone Idea combine, each entity has already spent somewhere between Rs 2 trillion and Rs 3 trillion in gross capital investment." They are hoping to drive others out of the market even though such investment is not resulting in profits. Although the number of users has risen by 61,436%, from 2 million to over one billion, overseas companies have lost a total of $23 billion. "Two many licenses, too little spectrum, high taxes and supply-constrained airwave auctions has made this a very expensive market to operate in," said C Lane, a Hong Kong based analyst. In 2008, the then government granted telecom licenses on a first come - first served basis. According to the Comptroller and Auditor General, by not auctioning licenses the country had suffered a loss of Rs 1.70 trillion. In 2012, the Supreme Court cancelled all 122 licenses as illegal, inflicting enormous losses on all companies who had invested heavily. Last December a CBI court found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of ministers. The Supreme Court said that the licenses were illegal which means someone broke the law, a lower court finds there was nothing illegal. So, the Supreme Court does not know the law. Brilliant. There is an outstanding tax demand of Rs 110 billion, which has risen to Rs 200 billion including interest and penalties, on Vodafone, the only foreign company still left in India. The Finance Minister thinks that this retrospective tax demand was a very bad idea. Although Vodafone has repeatedly won its cases against the tax, including in our Supreme Court, this government is still hounding it. Vodafone has been permitted to appeal to an international tribunal in London for arbitration which will cost many millions in lawyers fees and court charges. Already some 75,000 jobs have been lost in telecom and if we end up with a monopoly Indians will have to pay very high charges. Is it any wonder that there is no taker for Air India when the government intends to keep 24% share? The sale of 9 national highways to Macquarie went smoothly because the company got full control. Somehow Indians always lose.