Airtel and Jio cough up Rs 2306.97 crore for immediate assignment of available unsold spectrum blocks

Telecom service providers Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio have coughed up a total of Rs. 2306.97 crore in order to immediate assignment of available unsold spectrum blocks in the place of spectrum blocks assigned to them in the same LSA and band that would have been available at a later date.

The Government has accepted the request of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio at the expense of Airtel paying up Rs 157.38 crore and Jio paying up Rs 2149.59 crores. The payment has been received immediately by the Government rather than in August/September 2021.

“As a part of the frequency assignment, the Government has also accepted the request of two TSPs – M/S Bharti and M/S Reliance Jio, for assignment of immediately available unsold spectrum blocks in place of spectrum blocks in the same band and LSA assigned to them from later dates. An amount of Rs. 2306.97 crore (Rs. 157.38 crore from M/s Bharti and Rs. 2149.59 crore from M/s Reliance Jio) has been received immediately by the Government, rather than in August/ September, 2021,” said DoT in a prepared statement.

DoT has today also completed the assignment of frequencies to successful bidders of the Spectrum Auction 2021. The frequency assignment accompanied by a frequency harmonization exercise carried across multiple bands and multiple circles.

As covered earlier by OnlyTech, the date of availability of spectrum blocks varied as per the frequency assignment during the Spectrum Auction 2021 delaying the assignment of spectrum blocks to as late as October 2021. DoT notably hasn’t yet revealed the finer details of the spectrum blocks that have been assigned to the duo in place of the earlier assigned spectrum blocks.