Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel up post spectrum auction 2021

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Shares of Reliance Industries advanced in Wednesday’s early trade after billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Jio cornered more than half of the telecom spectrum auctioned by the government over the past two days, offering about Rs 57,123 crore to consolidate its holding of the scarce resource that are used to carry mobile call and data signals.

The scrip traded 0.72% higher at Rs 2121.30 at around 9.50 am (IST), while the benchmark BSE Sensex was up 276 points, or 0.55%, at 50,573 at around the same time.

Telecom giant Bharti Airtel bid Rs 18,699 crore to pick up 355.45 megahertz (MHz) out of the 855.60 MHz of radiofrequency, giving it “most formidable” spectrum holding in the country. Shares of Bharti Airtel were up 0.98% at Rs 546.

Vodafone Idea, which is facing a huge liability of unpaid statutory dues of past, bought spectrum worth Rs 1,993.40 crore, according to PTI. The scrip traded 1.05% down at Rs 11.26.

In the first auction of radio airwaves in five years, the government offered 2,308.80 MHz of spectrum in seven bands, at a reserve price of nearly Rs 4 lakh crore. However, airwaves in the premium 700 MHz and 2,500 MHz bands went unsold.

The telecom secretary said 855.60 MHz of spectrum was bought for Rs 77,814.80 crore in the two-day auction.

Spectrum refers to the radio frequencies allocated to the mobile industry and other sectors for communication over the airwaves. This includes FM or AM radio broadcasts and even other wireless forms of communication like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Mobile phones also use these same radio waves to transmit voice calls and data. These frequencies come in different bands, supporting specific technologies as well as governing speed of transmission. While AM or FM radio channels are all spread around 100MHz-200MHz, telecom spectrum starts from a higher frequency. The quantum of spectrum in each band too is measured in MHz.

Reliance Jio Infocomm said it acquired the right to use spectrum in all the 22 circles or zones across India. In all, it won 488.35 MHz of spectrum, taking up its spectrum footprint by 55 per cent to 1,717 MHz (uplink + downlink).