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Sunil Bharti Mittal, the founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, stated on Thursday that Bharti Airtel received the letter allocating its share of the spectrum just hours after paying the Department of Telecom in advance.
The Department of Telecom (DoT) has never before distributed a letter of spectrum allocation on the day of an upfront payment.
"After paying Rs. 8,312.4 crore in outstanding spectrum fees, Airtel received the letter of allocation for the specified frequency bands in a matter of hours. As promised, the E band allocation and spectrum were provided. No fuss, no follow-up, no pacing the halls, and no exaggerated claims. This is commercial convenience in all its splendour "In a statement, Mittal stated.
Service providers Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, Adani Data Networks, and Vodafone Idea have paid the Department of Telecom a total of about Rs. 17,876 crore for the spectrum they just acquired in an auction.
Bharti Airtel paid Rs. 8,312.4 crore, which is equal to four annual instalments, whereas all telecom companies chose to pay in 20 annual instalments.
"This is a first in my more than 30 years of first-hand involvement with DoT! As it should be, business. Workplace leadership: At the top and in charge of telecom. What a Difference! This country needs change to fulfil its aspirations to become a developed country "By Mittal.
By establishing a pan-Indian footprint in the 3.5 GHz and 26 GHz bands as well as specific purchases of radio waves in the low and mid-band spectrum, Airtel was able to acquire 19,867.8MHz of spectrum.
The largest telecom spectrum auction in the history of the country attracted bids of a record Rs. 1.5 lakh crore, with Mukesh Ambani's Jio securing nearly half of the airwaves sold with a price of Rs. 87,946.93 crore.
Reliance Jio has paid Adani Data Networks Rs 18.94 crore, Vodafone Idea Rs 1,679.98 crore, and Reliance Jio Rs 7,864.78 crore.
The group led by the wealthiest Indian, Gautam Adani, has submitted bids totaling Rs. 211.86 crore for 400MHz in a band not currently utilised for providing public telephony services.
Bharti Airtel, owned by telecom billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal, submitted a winning bid of Rs. 43,039.63 crore, while Vodafone Idea Ltd. paid Rs. 18,786.25 crore to purchase spectrum.
