Reliance Industries' Jio emerged as the biggest spender in India's $19 billion 5G spectrum auction, with the top telco player winning airwaves worth $11 billion as the world's number two mobile market gears up for the high-speed wireless network.
India's government aims to begin the rollout of 5G — which
it says can provide data speeds about 10 times faster than 4G — by October this
year. Globally, the next-generation network is seen as vital for emerging
technologies like self-driving cars and artificial intelligence.
The country's telecom minister said that companies bought 71
percent of a total of 72 GHz spectrum offered in the auction, which concluded
on Monday and also saw participation from Jio rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone
Idea, as well as a unit of Adani Enterprises.
Airtel and Vodafone won spectrum worth $5.4 billion and $2.4
billion, respectively.
"We understand that the spectrum purchased is good
enough to cover all the circles in the country," telecom minister Ashwini
Vaishnaw told a press briefing, referring to geographical areas of coverage.
India's 5G coverage will be "very good" over the next three years, he
added.
The telcos bid aggressively despite earlier concerns they
could lose about 40 percent of potential revenue due to some airwaves being
allotted to enterprises for private 5G networks.
Adani, the newest entrant to the auction process, purchased
airwaves worth nearly $27 million. The firm does not plan to offer consumer
services and is instead aiming to enter the private 5G network space.
To aid the cash-strapped telecom sector, the government is
allowing auction winners to pay the amounts owed in 20 equal annual
instalments.
Airtel and Vodafone have been under pressure since Jio
triggered a price war in 2016 with both reporting losses in recent years, also
squeezed by spectrum dues from earlier auctions. However, recent mobile data
price hikes have helped Airtel creep back to profit.
"This spectrum acquisition...has been part of a
deliberate strategy to buy the best spectrum assets at a substantially lower
relative cost compared to our competition," Airtel Chief Executive Officer
Gopal Vittal said in a statement.
Jio said that it will be ready for a pan-India rollout of 5G
"in the shortest period of time", without giving specifics. © Reuters
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