Airtel and Jio hold large amounts of data spectrum, while Idea and Vodafone have substantial gaps in their data coverage. The recent spectrum auction has increased the availability of data spectrum across the board and has allowed Idea and Vodafone to bridge some gaps. That said, compared to regional peers Indian telcos still have low spectrum holdings. Further except Jio which has access to pan-India 800MHk spectrum band, other telcos don?t have access to sub 1GHz data spectrum.
Over the last 12 months, incumbents have accelerated their data network deployments. So far telcos have been leveraging existing towers for the purpose of data. There is a lot of resistance among telcos to deploying new towers purely for data given pressure on data tariffs and high competitive intensity incumbents. Given this, telcos are likely to switch to alternative solutions to address capacity in hot spots in a more cost-efficient manner, including network sharing and spectrum sharing.
Separately there is a substantial gap between the fiber capabilities of 4G new entrant Jio and A-Vo-Id Operators. 4G entrants are estimated to have c60% of their towers fiberized, and in comparison even market leader Bharti is lower, at 20%. Idea and Vodafone
India are estimated at 10% and 15%, suggesting an increase in future investment.
