Adani Group confirms its entry into the telecom industry

The Adani group announced its entry into the telecom industry on Saturday. The company has plans to use airwaves for its data center, as well as the superapp it’s building to support businesses from power distribution to airports and gas retail to ports.

Announcing the same, the company released a statement saying, “As India prepares to launch the next generation of 5G services through this auction, we are one of the many applications participating in the open bidding process.”

“We are participating in the 5G spectrum auction to provide private network solutions along with enhanced cybersecurity to airport, port and logistics, power generation, transmission, distribution and various manufacturing operations,” the statement said.

“As we build our own digital platform, including super applications, edge data centers and industrial command and control centers, we will need ultra-high-quality data streaming capabilities via a high-frequency, low-latency 5G network across all of our businesses,” he said. says in it.

Bids for the July 26 auction for airwaves, including those capable of providing fifth-generation, or 5G, telecommunications services such as ultra-high-speed Internet connectivity closed on Friday with at least four bids. Jio, Airtel and Vodafone Idea – the three private players in the telecom sector – applied.

The fourth applicant is the Adani Group, which recently received National Long Distance (NLD) and International Long Distance (ILD) licences. “If we are awarded 5G spectrum in the open bidding, it will also align with our recent announcement to significantly increase the Adani Foundation’s investment in education, health and rural skills development, each of which can benefit from 5G technology,” Adani Group said. “All this is in line with our nation-building philosophy and support of Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

According to the auction schedule, the bidders’ property details are due to be published on July 12 and the bidders should be known then. A total of 72,097.85 MHz of spectrum worth at least Rs 4.3 lakh crore will be put on the block during the auction, which is scheduled to begin on July 26, 2022. The auction will be held for spectrum in various low frequencies (600 MHz, 700 MHz, 800 MHz, 900 MHz, 1800 MHz, 2100 MHz, 2300 MHz, medium (3300 MHz) and high (26 GHz) frequency bands.

The Ambani and Adani, who hail from Gujarat and have built mega business conglomerates, have not had a direct clash until recently. While the former expanded from oil and petrochemicals into telecommunications and retail, the latter diversified from the ports segment into coal, power distribution and aviation. But increasingly their interests are overlapping, setting the stage, some say, for a clash. In recent months, Adani has set up a subsidiary to foray into petrochemicals, a business that Ambani’s father Dhirubhai started before the downstream and upstream operations.

Ambani also announced multi-billion dollar plans for new energy businesses, including Giga Factories for solar panels, batteries, green hydrogen and fuel cells. Adani, which previously announced plans to be the world’s largest producer of renewable energy by 2030, unveiled its hydrogen ambitions. And now, if the Adani group participates in the 5G auction on July 26, it will be the first direct competition with Ambani.

The cabinet last month approved 5G auctions at reserve prices recommended by sector regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The regulator has recommended about a 39% reduction in the minimum price for the sale of 5G spectrum for mobile services. The validity of the right to use the spectrum will be 20 years.

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