Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications services provider, has received the clearance from the Indian telecom ministry for 4G spectrum trading deal with Aircel. Earlier, the company had entered into an agreement with Aircel to acquire rights to use 4G spectrum of Aircel in eight telecom circles for Rs 3,500 crore. These circles are Tamil Nadu, including Chennai, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Assam, the North-East, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
As part of receiving the permission for the spectrum sharing deal, the company surrendered 1.2 Mhz spectrum in 1800 Mhz band in Odisha circle as it breached the spectrum cap limit - after taking into account Aircel’s spectrum. Indian telecom operators cannot hold more than 25% of the total spectrum allocated in a telecom service area.
Bharti Airtel is a leading integrated telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. The company ranks amongst the top 5 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers.
