Airtel prepays the telecom department Rs 8,024 billion in outstanding spectrum debt

Airtel prepays the telecom department Rs 8,024 billion in outstanding spectrum debt

The action is anticipated to assist India's second-largest telecom in improving cash flows and reducing yearly interest payments.

Bharti Airtel said on Monday that it had paid the Department of Telecom Rs 8,024 crore in partial payback of deferred obligations related to spectrum purchased in the 2015 auction.

The telecom stated in a statement, "The abovementioned payments had an interest rate of 10% and have been prepaid by Airtel, leveraging far lower cost financing available to it. 

The action is anticipated to assist India's second-largest telecom, which is rushing to deploy 5G networks and hopes to provide the next-generation mobile broadband services statewide by December, save on yearly interest expenses and enhance cash flows.

In its statement, Airtel said that it "continues to enjoy access to an adequately diversified sources of capital / financing, enabling it to have enhanced financial flexibility in its capital arrangement, including optimised cost of the funding using all opportunities for substantial curiosity savings, like this prepayment." 

Airtel said last week that its B2B segment has connected over 20 million devices using its Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, making it the nation's first ICT service provider. The business-to-business (B2B) arm of telecom giant Bharti Airtel is called Airtel Business.

Recent notable successes for Airtel's Internet of Things (IoT) deployment include collaborations with Secure Metres and TP Western Odisha Spread confined for the deployment of 1.3 million smart metres in Bihar on NB-IoT and 200,000 smart millimetres in Odisha, as well as a deal with Matter Movement Works to power 300,000 bikes alongside cellular IoT.

We are pleased to reach this significant milestone of 20 million gadgets that are connected on our platform. IoT is a key pillar in India's digitization journey, and as a brand powering this journey with our ready for tomorrow technology products for connected gadgets, we are delighted to achieve this significant achievement.