Report Wire

Tag: 5g auctions

  • Spectrum acquisition: Four corporations pay Rs 17,876 crore upfront to DoT

    Bharti Airtel mentioned Wednesday it has paid Rs 8,312.4 crore upfront to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in the direction of dues for the spectrum it had acquired within the lately concluded 5G auctions. The telco mentioned it paid dues for 4 years upfront, as it might assist future money flows and its 5G rollout.

    The DoT additionally bought Rs 7,864.7 crore in upfront cost from Reliance Jio, Rs 1,679.98 crore from Vodafone Idea (Vi), and Rs 18.94 crore from Adani Data Networks, an Adani Group arm. As a outcome, it has obtained a complete of Rs 17,876 crore.

    Airtel plans to launch 5G providers this month. Over the final 12 months, it has additionally cleared Rs 24,333.7 crore of deferred spectrum liabilities, the telco mentioned.

    “The company believes that this upfront payment coupled with the moratorium on spectrum dues and AGR (adjusted gross revenue) related payments for four years will free up future cash flows and allow Airtel to dedicate resources to single-mindedly concentrate on the 5G roll out,” a press release by Airtel mentioned. It has tied up with Ericsson, Nokia, and Samsung for community agreements.

    According to DoT’s guidelines for receiving funds from the spectrum auctions, corporations have the choice to pay dues in 20 equated annual instalments. However, telecom operators are additionally free to pay the whole quantity or a part of it upfront, with the minimal period for upfront cost being two years. On August 5, the Department had issued demand notices to all of the 4 corporations to pay up their spectrum funds in 10 days, with Wednesday being the ultimate day.

    India’s largest ever spectrum public sale for 5G airwaves had ended on August 1 with bids upwards of Rs 1.5 lakh crore coming in after seven days of bidding unfold over 40 rounds, belying preliminary expectations that the public sale course of can be wrapped up in beneath three days.

    Jio emerged as the most important spender within the 5G spectrum public sale, buying virtually half of all of the airwaves offered for greater than Rs 88,000 crore, and was additionally the one one to have acquired spectrum within the premium 700 MHz band. Airtel, shelled out Rs 43,084 crore to accumulate a complete of 19.8 GHz of spectrum within the 900 MHz, 1,800 MHz, 2,100 MHz, 3,300 MHz and 26 GHz bands. Vi spent Rs 18,799 crore and bid for sure medium and excessive frequency bands. Adani Data Networks acquired spectrum solely within the 26 GHz band and spent Rs 212 crore.

    In an earnings name final week, Gopal Vittal, MD and CEO, Bharti Airtel had mentioned that the corporate plans to launch 5G providers beginning August and, by 2024, is anticipating to cowl massive components of the nation, together with in rural areas. The firm has ready detailed community roll-out plans for five,000 cities in India, he mentioned.

  • Mint Explainer: What 5G means for you, India and telcos

    For data-hungry India, the upcoming 5G auctions will herald one other telecom revolution. It goes past super-fast downloads and uploads, or glitch-free video calls, dwell streaming, and real-time gaming. 5G holds the promise of a tech utopia — from automated vehicles, to robotic surgical procedures and far more futuristic expertise. 5G might also finish the monopoly of telecom firms over telecom providers as the federal government is allocating spectrum to non-public enterprises too, a transfer that has turn out to be controversial. But that could possibly be only a teething bother. It’s the largest spectrum public sale with 72,000 MHz up for grabs.

    What is 5G?

    5G, brief for the fifth-generation mobile expertise, guarantees to exponentially increase the velocity and knowledge capability of wi-fi networks. Data is the brand new oil, as Mukesh Ambani has famously stated. Data site visitors is surging, estimated to be rising greater than 60% yearly. 5G is tailored to deal with this knowledge explosion globally, together with in India. Unlike 4G, 5G is able to connecting a number of gadgets seamlessly and may deal with a staggering 1 million gadgets per sq. kilometre. In India, 5G networks will run on mid- and high-end spectrum with velocity and capacities greater than 10 instances better than the 4G networks.

    View Full Image

    The Mobile-tech evolution

    What does 5G imply for us?

    Each new technology of cellular expertise ushered in a revolution. Think about it: 1G made cellular voice calls doable within the 80s; 2G launched SMS within the 90s, 3G made cellular internet searching doable within the early 2000s; and 4G introduced in a smartphone revolution with its excessive knowledge speeds. Now, 5G guarantees to launch its personal revolution — a world that may resemble a tech utopia.

    The 5G interface can join virtually all the pieces to your telephone via applied sciences corresponding to IoT and AI. From automated vehicles to smarter cities to cloud robotics to distant surgical procedures, 5G guarantees to make Hollywood sci-fi thrillers a actuality. The explosion in real-time info may remodel public providers within the nation, with vastly improved health-care services, regulation and order, site visitors administration, and many others. With sooner speeds and decrease latency (much less delay), 5G will delight Indians searching for leisure on their smartphones. There will likely be no glitches in video calls, dwell streaming, real-time gaming, and many others. 5G could possibly be a Big Bang second for OTT networks in India, remodeling the world of leisure, together with the enterprise of filmmaking.

    For the federal government, it’ll be a chance to carry extra Indians on board the data superhighway it has been crafting since 2014 via schemes like JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile), Digital India and Skill India. But let’s not run forward of ourselves. There will likely be teething troubles earlier than the 5G guarantees come to fruition.

    What does 5G imply for telecom firms?

    For telecom firms, the 5G launch will carry new existential challenges. They are nearly rediscovering pricing energy with tariff hikes over the previous yr, and each Jio and Bharti Airtel have been deleveraging and cleansing their stability sheets. Even Vodafone India is in the midst of fund-raising to maintain operations and even bid for 5G auctions.

    But right here’s the 5G problem for telcos — how do they monetise 5G swiftly over the subsequent few years with out bleeding their stability sheets additional? While Trai has minimize the reserve worth of 5G airwaves by 39% from the recommended worth in August 2018, telcos had been lobbying for a steep 90% minimize. At the bottom worth alone, the auctions will mop up ₹4.3 lakh crore.

    The larger concern for telcos is the federal government’s resolution to order a portion of its 5G spectrum for personal networks. This is predicted to get a giant thumbs-up from companies — from tech powerhouses to manufacturing giants to logistics firms to hospitals, and even instructional establishments. A captive community will likely be restricted to the operations of that enterprise. But telcos are shedding sleep over this transfer. Enterprises, in spite of everything, are anticipated to churn out 30% to 40% of their 5G revenues.

    The matter has blown right into a face-off between the Cellular Operators’s Association of India (COAI), the physique representing telcos, and Broadband India Forum (BFI), the consultant of tech giants corresponding to Amazon, Google and Facebook. COAI argues “there will likely be no viable enterprise case left for the telecom service suppliers,” if private enterprises set up captive networks. But BFI has termed it just a “misconception”. Captive 5G networks at the moment are a actuality globally, with about 70 international locations adopting this mannequin, together with the US, China, Japan and Germany. In this period of convergence, telecom providers are now not the protect of telcos however an necessary enter for companies too.

    Can 5G substitute 4G in India?

    Free voice calls and low-cost and high-speed knowledge ensured the speedy unfold of 4G in India. Almost your complete nation has now adopted it. Can 5G too emerge because the expertise of alternative for many Indians as quickly? It could take some time. Telcos will possible worth 5G providers increased than 4G. Unless, as some analysts counsel, they bump-up 4G tariffs to a stage the place they provide 5G as effectively. In a price-conscious market, this might imply a slower adoption of 5G by Indians. Moreover, it stays to be seen whether or not there will likely be satisfactory provide of 5G handsets in India to start with. 5G telephone shipments solely touched 30 million in 2021 whereas India has greater than a billion telecom customers.

    Subscribe to Mint Newsletters

    * Enter a sound electronic mail

    * Thank you for subscribing to our publication.

    First article

  • 5G spectrum auctions get Union Cabinet nod. Here are 5 key highlights

    The Union Cabinet has accepted the telecom division’s proposal to conduct 5G spectrum auctions in July. A complete of 72,097.85 MHz of spectrum with a validity interval of 20 years will likely be put to public sale to be held on July 26, 2022. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has issued a discover inviting purposes for potential bidders within the public sale.

    Here are 5 key highlights of the proposed spectrum auctions:

    1. The spectrum being auctioned this time is valued at greater than Rs 5 lakh crore on the base worth as advisable by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). In the earlier public sale carried out in March 2021, the federal government offered the rights to make use of airwaves to telecom corporations for Rs 77,820.81 crore.

    2. For the primary time, there is no such thing as a obligatory requirement to make upfront cost by the profitable bidders. Payments will be made by successful bidders in 20 equal month-to-month instalments. In case they go for upfront cost, a moratorium of two years is obtainable. This is anticipated to assist corporations ease money movement necessities.

    Best of Express PremiumPremiumPremiumPremiumPremium

    3. The authorities has allowed the organising of personal captive networks, the place tech corporations will be capable of purchase spectrum instantly from the DoT to arrange networks to check and construct Industry 4.0 purposes resembling machine-to-machine communications, the web of issues (IoT), synthetic intelligence, and so on.

    4. As a part of the Centre’s reduction bundle for telecom corporations introduced final 12 months, no spectrum utilization cost is being levied on airwaves being put beneath the hammer on this spherical of auctions.

    5. The bidders can even be given an choice to give up the spectrum after 10 years with no future liabilities with respect to stability instalments, the federal government mentioned.

  • 5G spectrum public sale seemingly in early June: Telecom minister Vaishnaw

    The authorities is prone to maintain 5G spectrum public sale in early June, telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw mentioned on Thursday.

    The minister mentioned that the Department of Telecom is working as per anticipated timeline and the method is on to resolve business issues round spectrum pricing.

    Asked in regards to the schedule of the spectrum public sale, Vaishaw mentioned that it’s anticipated to be in early June.

    Setting the stage for the rollout of 5G providers, telecom regulator Trai has mooted a mega public sale plan valued at over Rs 7.5 lakh crore on the base worth throughout a number of bands for radio waves allotted over 30 years.

    “We are very much as per our timeline to conduct the auction,” Vaishnaw mentioned.

    The minister mentioned that the Digital Communications Commission will take a name on Trai suggestions and method them for clarification.

    The watchdog has beneficial a mega public sale plan of over Rs 7.5 lakh crore for over 1 lakh megahertz spectrum in case the federal government allocates it for a interval of 30 years.

    In case of 20 years, the overall worth of the proposed spectrum public sale will stand at round Rs 5.07 lakh crore on the reserve worth, in response to the back-of-the-envelope calculation.

    While Trai has decreased spectrum worth by about 39 per cent in comparison with final worth, telecom operators have mentioned that the beneficial charges are greater than world benchmarks.