Vodafone Idea & Airtel AGR Fiasco

[pothi]

Things aren't looking good for Vodafone.

SC order means fines on Vodafone Idea, Airtel can fund BSNL, MTNL revival plan

This is a huge blow to private telcos who have been running losses for the past many quarters.Vodafone Idea is likely to find its cash balance of ₹21000 crore at the end of June wiped out as a result of the SC order

www.livemint.com

Only three months were given to settle the due... Vodafone Idea to seek waiver after court ruling on overdue payments

 

[Crazyguy030601]

Oho! Duopoly on the horizon

 

[igloo]

With this fine even Airtel won't survive.
Rcom n Aircel dues can't be recovered but Jio can use Rcom shared spectrum without making any pending payment.
So they want share in non-telecom stuff too. Back door move from Jio.

This is a 16-year-old dispute between DoT and telcos. DoT argued that a wider number of items - interest income, dividend, profits on the sale of assets, insurance claim and forex gain - should be included as components of AGR. Telcos, for obvious reasons, didn't agree. Telcos like Airtel argued that if they buy a commercial property and sell it for a premium, it doesn't seem right that DoT wants to take a share from it - even if the licences given to telcos contain clauses that include sharing non-telecom revenues with the department.

 

[Crazyguy030601]

This is seriously worrying. I got this feeling that we won't have any choice among TSPs pretty soon.

 

[JamesHolden25]

This is seriously worrying. I got this feeling that we won't have any choice among TSPs pretty soon.

I bet there's gonna be just 3 operators. Jio, Airtel and BSNL. That's exactly what the market needs. It's sad that VIL will be exiting the market, but it looks like this problem was on them after all. They were gaming the system back then, and now the system is gaming them. Airtel won't be able to bid for 5G spectrum after paying the dues for another 5 years. Jio is having the advantage here as they have to pay just 13 crores, which is more or less, spare change for them.

 

[pothi]

The countdown has begun. Only three months were given to settle the due. Vodafone to apply for a waiver, though. Vodafone Idea to seek waiver after court ruling on overdue payments

On the other hand, overall, the recent Court ruling seems to be a bad sign for the economy... Why govt should be first to protest its win in SC against Vodafone Idea, Airtel . Economics looks a bit complex.

For the consumers, one less choice. We could've benefited from Vodafone's experience in 5g in UK... 5G on Vodafone | The fifth generation of mobile technology

 

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[Crazyguy030601]

The only good thing I can think of (if Vodafone shuts down) is that a lot of band 1 and band 8 spectrum will be freed up for Airtel and band 3 for Airtel and Jio both. Prices will increase further, as it should. I've got this feeling that even if they scrape past this ruling, Vodafone isn't in a good position anyway. They don't have capital for network expansion and they're lagging behind the other two a LOT. And I might be wrong, but Airtel has more high paying customers than Vodafone.

 

[Savaiva]

With this fine even Airtel won't survive.
Rcom n Aircel dues can't be recovered but Jio can use Rcom shared spectrum without making any pending payment.
So they want share in non-telecom stuff too. Back door move from Jio.

Why the f**k would you use your telecom company to do real estate deals when this risk is there?

 

[Bruce_Wayne]

The only good thing I can think of (if Vodafone shuts down) is that a lot of band 1 and band 8 spectrum will be freed up for Airtel and band 3 for Airtel and Jio both. Prices will increase further, as it should. I've got this feeling that even if they scrape past this ruling, Vodafone isn't in a good position anyway. They don't have capital for network expansion and they're lagging behind the other two a LOT. And I might be wrong, but Airtel has more high paying customers than Vodafone.

I thought instead of merging idea and Vodafone these both should have merged with Airtel. Since Airtel has good network pan-india, operating on similar frequencies of VIL, with Airtel as dominant anchor network pan India they should have merged with it. Airtel, VIL both has band 1,3,8, 40 so merger will be not as tedious as now. Let's see what happens. 3-4 operators is good. 2 operators will lead to duopoly.

 

[Crazyguy030601]

Exactly.