4 Cheers For Bharti!

Telecom bellwether Bharti Airtel Ltd. finally announced the long awaited and long anticipated move of acquiring stake in Qualcomm Inc.'s Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) (SeeBharti Acquires 49% Stake In Qualcomm's 4G Venture).

This move gives the company spectrum in four circles, Mumbai, Delhi, Punjab and Kerala. However, the most important circles are the metro cities of Delhi and Mumbai, which have the maximum high ARPU customers. The early mover advantage is important in these circles to capture the users of high bandwidth.

As we have said earlier, it was critically important for Bharti to acquire Qualcomm's spectrum in the two circles of Delhi and Mumbai. According to TRAI's recent recommendations, the 700 Mhz spectrum auction should be held in 2014-15. This implied that if Bharti had any ambition of beating arch rival, Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), which has pan-India BWA spectrum, it had to acquire Qualcomm's spectrum. Besides, 700 Mhz spectrum will not be as efficient as 2.3 Ghz spectrum in metros. (See Is Qualcomm Only Hope For Airtel?.)

The move gives clear advantage to Bharti over Reliance Industries. With this the company is in a position to launch 4G services in Delhi and Mumbai. Bharti also has the advantage of being able to offer voice, which Reliance doesn't. India can see the launch of 4G services in Delhi and Mumbai in the next six months. However, even so Bharti would have to wait for 4G ecosystem to evolve before it hits big numbers or looks at return on investment.

"This is a new technology and you have to accept. Pickup is happening but it is slow for sure. You have to consider that there are no handsets right now. Dongles means that the usage is limited," Jagbir Singh, Director - Network Services, Bharti Airtel told Light Reading India.

Bharti has already rolled out network in Kolkata and Bangalore. The company has said that it plans to rollout in Pune and Chandigarh. Predictably, the company would be planning to launch in the two metros soon.

We hope that the company takes lead not just in the launch of 4G services but also in taking it to the next level.

With this deal Bharti comes into its own and takes the leadership position, again in pushing the mobile broadband services in the country. Cheers Bharti!!

Gagandeep Kaur, Editor, Light Reading India