(Telecompaper) The Indian government received provisional bids worth almost INR 1.10 trillion (approximately USD 17.6 billion) at the end of 110 rounds of bidding in the latest spectrum auction, the telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said. The government initially expected to raise around INR 820 billion in this spectrum auction. The government did not disclose winning bidders and the regions in which they had won spectrum, but the country's top operators -- Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular -- are expected to have bought the major chunk of the 20-year licences on offer, Reuters reports. Eight mobile operators bid for a total of 465 MHz of spectrum across four bands. The government offered 103.75 MHz in the 800 MHz band, 177.8 MHz in the 900 MHz band, 99.2 MHz in the 1,800 MHz band and 85 MHz in the 2,100 MHz band.