airtel: Airtel won’t bid for 700 MHz, says has enough for Quality 5G

won’t be bidding for the 700 MHz band in future auctions as its current spectrum holdings along with the new airwaves that it bought in the just concluded airwave sale are together enough to offer quality 5G services, senior company officials said.

This was also the reason why India’s second largest telco didn’t bid for spectrum in the 700 MHz band in the recent auctions, the officials added. Analysts from brokerage houses such as BoFA Securities, Nomura, UBS, Goldman Sachs and

have in recent reports stated that could be forced to buy the more expensive 700 MHz spectrum in the next auction to counter Jio, which has bought spectrum in this band.

The 700 MHz band could help Jio offer better speeds indoors and hence poach high-end users from Airtel, said these reports But Airtel executives disagree. “.. it does not make sense for us to buy 700 MHz,” a company official told ET.

“Simply put, experience is no different. Ecosystem (around 700 MHz band) is less evolved, capex is higher, operating cost is higher, because there’s more energy required for the cell sites.” Commenting about its battle with Jio over 10 MHz of spectrum in the 1800 MHz band in UP (East), which resulted in the auctions lasting for a week, an Airtel executive said the company fought till the price reached the level of the 900 MHz band.

“The price we finally exited was `165 crores. The price of 900 MHz band was also Rs 160 crores, so there was no point in going beyond that. It had to be at the right price,” he said. Jio bagged 10 MHz in the band in UP(E) for Rs 1,646 crore. Airtel is initially planning to roll out 5G services through what is called the non-standalone (NSA) mode.