Airtel prepays Rs 8,024 crore dues for spectrum to telecom department

Bharti Airtel on Monday announced that it has prepaid Rs 8,024 crore to the Department of Telecom towards part prepayment of deferred liabilities pertaining to spectrum acquired in the auction of the year 2015.

"The said instalments had an interest rate of 10 per cent and have been prepaid by Airtel, leveraging much lower cost financing available to it," the telco said in a statement. 

The move is expected to help India’s second-largest telco save on interest costs annually and improve cash flows even as it rapidly rolls out 5G networks and looks to offer the next-gen mobile broadband services nationally by December.

"Airtel continues to enjoy access to a well-diversified sources of capital / financing, allowing it to have enhanced financial flexibility in its capital structure including optimised cost of financing using all opportunities for significant interest savings, like this prepayment," its statement added. 

Last week, Airtel announced that its B2B division has become the first ICT service provider in the country to connect over 20 million devices through its Internet of Things (IoT) solutions. Airtel Business is the business-to-business (B2B) division of telecom company Bharti Airtel.

Recent key wins for Airtel IoT deployment include a partnership with Secure Meters for the deployment of 1.3 million smart meters in Bihar on NB-IoT, a partnership with TP Western Odisha Distribution Limited for the deployment of 200,000 smart meters in Odisha, as well as a pact with Matter Motor Works to power 300,000 bikes through cellular IoT.

"IoT is a key pillar in India's digital growth journey and, as a brand powering this journey with our future-ready technology solutions for connected devices, we are delighted to achieve this significant milestone of 20 million connected devices on our platform," Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, chief executive officer (CEO), Airtel Business (India), had said in a statement.