Airtel to buy Aircel's 4G in 8 circles for Rs 3,500 crore

New Delhi: India’s largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel said on Friday that it will acquire 20 Mhz spectrum in 2300 band in eight circles from Aircel for Rs 3,500 crore. With this acquisition, Bharti Airtel will now become pan-India 4G operator and better prepared to counter Mukesh Ambani’’s Reliance Jio which is expected to start its services this year.

In March, Bharti Airtel  had announced a Rs 4,428-crore deal to buy Videocon Telecom’s spectrum in six regions to expand its footprint in 4G. The acquisition of Videocon spectrum had given Bharti the ability to offer 4G services in 19 of 22 circles. Earlier Jio was only player which had pan-India 4G spectrum but now other players are also trying to catch up.  

Bharti will acquire spectrum or radio waves from Aircel in 2,300 MHz band in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, North East, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. Aircel had won the spectrum in a government auction and is entitled to hold it till September 20, 2030.

“The transfer of right to use for the circles of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha is subject to the revision of spectrum caps with the upcoming auction to be conducted by DoT,” said Bharti Airtel.

Bharti has announced plans to invest as much as Rs 600 billion in improving voice and data quality. The 4G spectrum is considered as the new frontier of telecom war. There is a rapid growth in data services, as usage is doubling annually while data average revenue per user (ARPU) per month has jumped to over Rs 200 higher than voice’s Rs 137.

The top four Indian telecom firms have been keen to acquire spectrum from smaller unprofitable firms since September 2015, when the regulator allowed spectrum trading among telcos.