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Bharti Airtel To Buy Aircel Mobile Spectrum For Rs 3,500 Crore

Bharti Airtel To Buy Aircel Mobile Spectrum For Rs 3,500 Crore
An advertisment for Bharti Airtel Ltd. sits outside a sim card vendor's stall in Mumbai, India, on Monday, Oct. 19, 2015. Bharti, Indias largest wireless carrier, is scheduled to announce earnings on Oct. 26. Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bloomberg via Getty Images
An advertisment for Bharti Airtel Ltd. sits outside a sim card vendor's stall in Mumbai, India, on Monday, Oct. 19, 2015. Bharti, Indias largest wireless carrier, is scheduled to announce earnings on Oct. 26. Photographer: Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Indian telecommunications giant Bharti Airtel Ltd said on Friday it had agreed to pay Aircel 35 billion rupees ($526 million) for radio frequencies in eight service areas, to make its 4G mobile broadband services available across India.

Bharti, India's largest mobile phone operator, will acquire the rights to use spectrum in the 20 Mhz 2300 band from Aircel, the company said in a statement to the Indian stock exchange.

Last month Bharti agreed to pay 44.28 billion rupees to Videocon Telecommunications for more mobile spectrum. Booming sales of smartphones in India are encouraging telecom operators to expand their infrastructure spending to increase their 3G and 4G mobile broadband services.

India has over 1 billion subscribers to mobile voice telephony services but only a third of those currently use mobile Internet services.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.