Airtel plans to invest additional Rs 27-28,000 crore with focus on 5G

Telecom operator Bharti Airtel has plans to invest Rs 27,000-28,000 crore in telecom network with a focus on 5G rollout, a company official said on Wednesday.

While the company is planning to increase capital expenditure by 10-15 per cent, it has no plans to charge a premium rate for 5G services as it has not worked in several countries that tried to do so.

"Airtel capex will be in line with that spent in the last three years. It may go up and down because of the faster rollout of 5G-- around Rs 27,000-28,000 crore. We may see an upsurge in one year and gradually moderate around the same level," the official, who did not wish to be named, told PTI.

The company earlier had an annual average capex in the range of Rs 24,000-25,000 crore. The official said that capex is being largely spent on radios (mobile antennas), fibre, broadband, enterprise technology data centres etc.

According to data shared by the telecom ministry, Bharti Airtel has rolled out 3,293 base stations for 5G till .