3G mobile calls to cost users dearly, says Mittal

New Delhi, July 11: Market leader Bharti Airtel on Sunday cautioned that 3G mobile services will not come cheap, especially for subscribers in metros, as service providers had to pay dearly for spectrum.

“Take the example of Delhi itself, or Mumbai. The amount for spectrum that has been charged is close to Rs 3,500 crore each... Just to recover license fees and input cost, it works out to be Rs 700-900 per month,” Bharti Group chairman, Mr Sunil Mittal, said.

Amid highly aggressive bidding for 3G spectrum, Bharti Airtel won 13 circles, including Delhi and Mumbai, paying Rs 12,295.46 crore, the highest among service providers.

The company could not achieve the objective of a pan-India 3G foot print as the prices rose beyond a reasonable level due to various factors like the auction format, a severe shortage of spectrum and also ensuing policy uncertainty.

Asked by when the service would be launched by Bharti, Mr Mittal said, “Some time later this year. We will wait for the spectrum allocation, which is promised in September, a few months after that.”

In fact, not only Bharti, but no operator could bag the pan-India 3G spectrum. The three leading mobile operators — Bharti, Vodafone and Reliance Communications — managed to win 3G spectrum in Delhi and Mumbai, which could lead to a tariff war in these two metros. PSU firms MTNL and BSNL together have pan-India 3G.

In the rest of the circles, especially in the C-category, the tariffs may not be very high.