Cellcos Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, and Idea Cellular may soon sign an agreement to share their 3G spectrum in order to roll out services across the whole country and cut costs, reported Dow Jones. “Idea is finalising long-term arrangements with…
Cellcos Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, and Idea Cellular may soon sign an agreement to share their 3G spectrum in order to roll out services across the whole country and cut costs, reported Dow Jones.
“Idea is finalising long-term arrangements with select quality operators for service areas where Idea was not awarded 3G spectrum,” Idea Cellular wrote on its website.
Bharti has licences to operate such services in 13 of India’s 22 circles, while Idea has licences in 11 circles, and Vodafone Essar in nine circles.
Bharti reportedly paid Rs122.95bn (US$2.74bn) for its licences, Vodafone spent Rs116.18bn (US$2.6bn) and Idea Rs57.69bn (US$1.28bn).
The three companies are already partners in Indus Towers, a telecom tower JV between Airtel’s owned-Bharti Infratel, Vodafone, and Idea Cellular. Indus is the largest Indian tower company with about 100,000 towers.
In the meantime, Idea Cellular has today started rolling out 3G services in three circles and plans to expand its services to 4000 towns by the end of financial year 2012. Bharti, Vodafone, along with several other cellcos, have already launched 3G services in recent months.
