Sunil Mittal, chairman of Indian telco Bharti Airtel, said during MWC 2025 that consolidation in the telecom sector is essential to enable operators to invest heavily in infrastructure and partner with satellite providers
BARCELONA- Indian telco Bharti Airtel’s chairman Sunil Mittal has called on governments and regulators to incentivize telecom operators to expand rural connectivity, support industry consolidation, and lower spectrum costs.
Speaking at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2025 in Barcelona, he emphasized the urgent need for cooperation between terrestrial and satellite operators to close the connectivity gap for the last 400 million people worldwide.
Mittal stressed that consolidation in the telecom sector is essential to enable operators to invest heavily in infrastructure and partner with satellite providers. He argued that the industry should focus on sharing resources rather than duplicating investments.
“Compete on the strength of your brands, your services, but don’t try to compete by building solo capital infrastructure,” he stated.
He also questioned the necessity of excessive infrastructure buildup: “How many fiber highways are enough? How many duplicate towers are enough?”
Commenting on India’s telecom evolution, the executive noted that the country once had 12 operators, leading to fragmented spectrum and small, inefficient networks primarily targeting urban areas. With the market now consolidated to three major players -Airtel, Jio and Vodafone Idea-, he believes operators have gained the scale needed to support widespread 4G and 5G coverage across the country.
During his keynote speech, Mittal reiterated the importance of leveraging satellite services to bridge the rural connectivity divide and urged operators to work together rather than compete in isolation.
“We have a mission to finish the job of covering the last 400 million people,” he stated, adding that satellite technology is key to addressing coverage gaps in remote areas.
Mittal also urged regulators to lower taxes on telecom operators and allocate spectrum at more reasonable prices to ensure sustainable industry growth.
Bharti Airtel ended last year with a 5G subscriber base of 120 million as it continued expanding its network coverage. During a previous earnings call, Bharti Airtel’s vice chairman and managing director, Gopal Vittal confirmed that Airtel has ceased investing in 4G capacity and is now fully focused on expanding its 5G network.
“With the ceasing of the big rollouts that we saw, we are not putting any investments in 4G capacity all we are doing is few more 5G radios as we expand and see more devices coming in. The places where capex continues to be deployed-one of the big components is transport,” he said.
In the Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) segment, which delivers broadband services via Airtel’s 5G network, the company expanded its reach during the quarter and is now operational in over 2,000 cities.
Airtel is currently using equipment from Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung to provide 5G services.
Bharti Airtel previously confirmed that it has started re-farming its existing mid-band spectrum with the main aim of accommodating the growing traffic demand on its 5G network. To accommodate the growing number of customers migrating to its 5G network, Airtel said it is in the process of re-farming its mid-band spectrum to expand 5G services on its 1.8 GHz, 2.1 GHz and 2.3 GHz bands across India.
