India's third largest mobile operator, Idea Cellular has entered into an agreement with Videocon to acquire its mobile spectrum in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh (West) for Rs 3,310 crore (about $500 million). The deal which gives Idea Cellular the right to use 2x5 MHz contiguous blocks of 1800 MHz in each service areas, will enable the operator to leverage the spectrum to launch 4G LTE in these areas.
With the latest agreement, Idea’s 4G LTE spectrum footprint will expand to 12 service areas covering over 75 per cent of Idea’s current revenue and over 72 per cent of existing 170 million subscribers. These 12 circles currently contribute 60 per cent of the Indian telecom industry mobility revenues.
Idea, a unit of the Aditya Birla conglomerate said that it is on track to launch its 4G services in 750 towns across existing 10 4G circles by first half of 2016. The company is confident that with the expansion of its spectrum portfolio, strong customer affinity of over 170 million customers, robust cash flows and excellent track record of execution, the brand will be able to profitably monetize the opportunities in mobile broadband across 3G and 4G platforms.
Image by David Castor, Wikimedia Commons
