Rationale of Sharing Costs: Reliance and Bharti Airtel sign deal

Reliance Industries and Bharti Airtel ink agreement to share towers

Reliance Industries 4G rollout

Reliance Industries which is expected to roll out its much awaited 4-G services across the country has tied up with the largest telecom operator of the country, Bharti Airtel to share its telecom infrastructure. This move is expected to bring a number of advantages for both the companies.

Expected benefits to new-entrant Reliance Industries

The new entrant into the highly competitive market would save on its cost of investment and operations as it would start its operations riding on the shared telecom infrastructure of Bharti.

Government becomes farmer - What is this talk of Re-farming by government?!?

Re-farming of air-waves planned by government

The government is putting in place regulatory guidelines to take back spectrum airwaves in the 900 MHz category from existing telecom giants like Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Vodafone, etc. The idea of re-farming of airwaves is derived from the government's plan to ask all existing operators to pool back all spectrum post-2014 when they have to renew their existing licenses. If the government carries it forward, these companies shall have to surrender all their existing spectrum and consequently have to bid for them all over again. 

Refarming of telecom spectrum

While the  re-farming of the spectrum may benefit the newcomers in the Indian telecom space and create a level-playing field and raise lot of precious cash for the deficit-laden government but it is definitely not good news for the existing operators. They might have to pump in huge cash to either buy the existing spectrum in a bidding war or move to equally costly shift from the 900 MHz band to 1800 MHz.

The government is becoming a new age farmer, let's hope it has a healthy harvest without crippling the consumers!!