Bharti Airtel, one of India’s leading telecommunications services providers, has announced that it is set to lead India’s 5G revolution.
The telecom company said that it has acquired the 19,800 MHz spectrum by securing a pan India footprint of 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands.
In addition, the company was able to selectively bolster mid-band spectrum. This massive spectrum bank was secured for a total consideration of Rs 43,084 cr in the latest spectrum auction conducted by the Department of Telecom, Government of India.
Airtel has secured 5G spectrum for 20 years in this auction. The acquisition of this vast amount of spectrum strapped on to an already industry best existing pool of spectrum will mean that the company does not need to spend any material sum on spectrum for many years to come.
In addition, this spectrum acquisition has enabled Airtel to drastically reduce the payout towards spectrum usage charge (SUC) and eliminate the adverse SUC arbitrage compared to new entrants.
Airtel now has the widest mobile broadband footprint across the country making it well-positioned to usher in the 5G revolution in India. In the past year, Airtel has led the industry and spearheaded 5G technology in India testing several use cases with multiple partners at many locations.
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