After Jio, Airtel plans to add airwaves in eight key markets

Competitive intensity between Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel is set to rise. Just days after Reliance Jio said it was deploying additional spectrum across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, Bharti Airtel has set in motion plans to add airwaves in eight key markets, including Punjab and Gujarat, in the coming weeks.

Sunil Mittal-led Airtel rolled out additional airwaves in the 1800 MHz band in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala on Monday and will add units in the 900 MHz band in the latter two circles shortly.

Both telcos aim to boost 4G broadband coverage as vast swathes of India’s corporate workforce operate from home amid lockdowns during the Covid second wave. The two operators are leveraging recent spectrum purchases to attract new data subscribers and users from Vodafone Idea. The result: consumers are unlikely to see an increase in their mobile phone bills soon.

“With the fight for mobile broadband users hotting up between Airtel and Jio via fresh spectrum deployments, tariff hikes could be delayed by at least another three months, and any revenue growth till then would come from user adds and a mix improvement via larger share of 4G users,” an analyst at a global brokerage.

After deploying 11.2 units and 5 units of additional 1800 MHz airwaves in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, respectively, Airtel is set to add airwaves in the 900 MHz band in Gujarat, UP-East, Kerala, Bihar, Odisha and Jharkhand to boost high-speed data capacity, a senior company executive. BusinessTimes