"We have always maintained that the price of the spectrum on 5G as has been indicated is very expensive and we won’t be able to afford it at those levels," Bharti Airtel India & South Asia CEO Gopal Vittal told investors on Thursday, adding that 5G is still a nascent technology and ecosystem, and that it would be quite some time before it has any significance in India. "The fundamental issue really is that at these levels of ARPU — 5G offers higher speeds and lower latency. If you have more spectrum of 4G without deployment of radios, you can still get higher speeds. [...] The fundamental issue in 5G is that the cost of spectrum is way over the top for any kind of business to work, because the capex wouldn’t have even started." Impact of COVID-19 on Airtel "On the mobile side, there were several headwinds, one was the international roaming fell to zero. Secondly, massive amount of SIM consolidation at the bottom end, or dropping of SIM altogether. We have seen challenges in our outlets. April was bad as recharge points were closed. We were able to activate chemists and grocers. We have seen lockdowns in May and June in a district-by-district level. Saturdays and Sundays have low recharge levels, but they were very poor because of harsher lockdowns. The erosion of customers that we saw, however, was on the lower [ARPU] level, and that has completely stopped." Cost cutting and acceleration to digitisation: "COVID taught us…
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