Bharti Airtel on Wednesday announced its deal to buy 100 percent equity stake in Augere Wireless Broadband India.
The Indian telecom service provider did not share financial details of the deal.
Augere Wireless, which earlier tied up with telecom network vendor Ericsson for launching 4G LTE services, holds 20 MHz of BWA spectrum in the telecom circle of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh (MPCG). Augere Wireless did not go ahead with the broadband plans in India due to regulatory issues and technology related challenges.
“Upon acquisition, Augere will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Airtel. The acquisition is subject to necessary statutory and regulatory approvals,” said Bharti Airtel in a statement.
Airtel earlier acquired BWA spectrum license from Qualcomm as well to expand its 4G LTE presence.
Bharti Airtel recently announced that the telecom service provider launched 4G LTE in nearly 300 cities. Airtel is expanding 4G at a time when several Indian telecoms are shying away from making investment in 4G mobile broadband. The company is also offering 4G at 3G prices to attract customers.
On the other hand, the Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Jio Infocomm has postponed the launch of its 4G LTE services to 2015-end due to lack of preparedness despite announcing plans to spend nearly $20 billion. Aircel, one of the 4G license holders, made an announcement saying its 4G trials are on in Andhra Pradesh. But it did not share any additional details later on.
Vodafone, Idea Cellular and Uninor will also be entering the 4G services market. Most of the smartphone makers are betting big on the 4G phone market expecting that 4G will take off in the country.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
