Bharti Airtel plans to introduce 4G services in the Mumbai circle by March 2015. The launch comes ahead of the introduction of 4G services by Mukesh Ambani?s Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL), scheduled for later in the year.
Bharti Airtel was the first player to offer 4G service to users, having introduced 4G services in Kolkata in 2012. Currently, the operator is providing 4G services in 15 cities. As of January 2014, Bharti Airtel had 100,000 4G subscribers and the operator has reported that over the last year it has witnessed 95 per cent growth in overall data usage on its network and a 31 per cent increase in data usage per subscriber.
With RJIL yet to launch 4G services, Bharti Airtel plans to speed up the rollout of 4G services to get a headstart in the 4G market. The competition for market share in the 4G segment is primarily going to be between RJIL and Bharti Airtel as these are the only two players to have won 4G spectrum in auctions held in 2010. Other operators including Vodafone India and Idea Cellular did not win spectrum for providing 4G services in the auctions conducted in 2010. Market dynamics notwithstanding, Bharti Airtel could run into regulatory hurdles in its run-up to the launch of 4G services in the Mumbai circle. The operator faces the issue of payment of one-time migration fee for the Mumbai circle.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is of the view that Bharti Airtel has to pay a fee of Rs 4.36 billion to merge the four internet licences that the company acquired from Qualcomm, including Mumbai, with its existing unified licences. Earlier, Qualcomm with an Internet Service Provider?s licence had acquired broadband spectrum in 2010.
According to DoT, an operator holding a licence to offer internet services cannot offer voice services. Under the new unified licence regime, an operator with an internet licence will have to pay a one-time migration fee if it wants to offer voice services. This regulatory hurdle could potentially delay the launch of 4G services by Bharti Airtel, if the operator decides to challenge the one time migration fee payable by it.
