Bharti Airtel to buy Aircel mobile spectrum for $526 million

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - 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.

($1 = 66.5523 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Tommy Wilkes; Editing by Keith Weir)