Bharti Airtel Looking to Improve the ARPU to Rs 200 for Sustainability: Sunil Mittal

The government must price spectrum reasonably and lower various levies to encourage rollout of 5G services in the country at the earliest, Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal said on Tuesday. He also warned that spectrum auction might fail and Airtel might not bid for airwaves if auctions are held at prices recommended by sector regulator Trai. “My recommendation is government must encourage 5G coming in India rather than being late. The government can help in giving more spectrum at a reasonable price,” Mittal told reporters of PTI. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on Monday recommended an auction of about 8,644 MHz of telecom frequencies at an estimated total base price of Rs 4.9 lakh crore, which includes radio waves for 5G services. Furthermore, he added that the telco is looking to improve the ARPU to Rs 200 from around Rs 100 right now.

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Mittal said for 5G every operator would require over 100 megahertz and frequencies in 3500 megahertz are likely to be preferred for the next generation services. “DoT can keep trying. They had two failed auctions and do they want to have five more failed auctions after them. Spectrum is required, spectrum will be bought, India will get into 5G, but the only thing that will stand in the way is right pricing for spectrum in India,” Mittal said.

He said that high spectrum prices have been fixed by the government in the previous auction and high auction-determined prices are then taken as the base price for the next auction which has made airwaves very expensive.