Bharti Airtel, India's top telecom operator, has completed the acquisition of Augere Wireless India Private Limited, which holds 20 MHz of spectrum in 2,300 Mhz band spectrum in Madhya Pradesh circle. The Sunil Mittal-led telecom operator had last year inked a definitive agreement to acquire 100 per cent equity stake in Augere Wireless. Various media reports valued the deal at around Rs 150 crore.
In a BSE filing on Thursday, Bharti Airtel said, "the merger of Augere Wireless Broadband India Private Limited (Augere), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bharti Airtel Limited (Airtel) has been completed.
Augere had acquired 20 Mhz of spectrum in 2,300 Mhz band in Madhya Pradesh service area, including Chhattisgarh, for Rs 124.66 crore in 2010, but it has never rolled out 4G services using the airwaves.
With this deal, Airtel now possesses 20 Mhz in 2300 Mhz band across 17 service areas. Airtel had directly acquired 4G spectrum in four service areas for Rs 3,314.36 crore in 2010 and had bought Qualcomm's spectrum in four circles including metros. The telecom operator has now also acquired Aircel's 4G spectrum in eight telecom circles through spectrum sharing and trading route.
Bharti Airtel's total spectrum holding across all band was 710 Mhz in December-end 2016.
The telecom operator is deploying and expanding its 4G network under its network transformation program - Project Leap. Under the program, the telco is investing Rs 60,000 crores over the next three years.
