Airtel Successfully Acquired Aircel’s 4G Spectrum in 8 Circles to Combat Reliance Jio

With this acquisition, Bharti Airtel now offers 4G services in 19 out of 22 telecom cities in the country.

| Updated: Thursday, July 19, 2018, 15:06 [IST]

India's largest telecom network, today successfully acquired Aircel's 20MHz spectrum under the 2300MHz band in eight circles of India. With this deal, it will now offer 4G services in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Assam, North East, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh.

Airtel Successfully Acquired Aircel’s 4G Spectrum in 8 Circles

Back in April 2016, it had acquired the Aircel's 20MHz of 2300 band spectrum for whopping Rs. 3500 crores.

Also, the company stated that they will become a Pan-India 4G operator with this acquisition. And, it took nearly six months to complete the deal and to get necessary approvals from Department of Telecommunication.

Back in March 2016, it has bought Videocon's 1800MHz spectrum in six circles for Rs. 4428 crores. It has also successfully acquired Idea's cellular spectrum.

Idea Cellular was about to purchase the Videocon's 1800MHz spectrum in two circles for Rs. 3310 crores.

In April, Gopal Vittal, India CEO stated that the company was in talks to purchase the 700MHz spectrum, but that was very expensive and going by the reports and rumors, the 700MHz price was about 4 lakh crores.

It is aggressively expanding their 4G presence in India to especially combat the Reliance Jio. Having said that, the new entrant, Reliance Jio has been licensed as the LTE-only network.

Also, there are some rumors suggesting that Reliance Jio has already started testing the LTE-A network in India after seeing the quick growth of other telecoms.

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