Airtel has entered into an agreement with Aircel to acquire rights to use 4G spectrum of Aircel in 8 telecom circles these circles are  Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, West Bengal, Assam, the North-East, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.The spectrum trading deal between Bharti Airtel and Aircel was cleared by the telecom minister.

The development comes even as the department of telecommunications (DoT) has cleared Maxis-owned Aircel’s sale of airwaves in the 2300 MHz band in 8 circles to Airtel for Rs 3,500 crore.

• Airtel was asked to surrender 2 Mhz spectrum in Odisha circle for approval as it breached the spectrum cap limit .The company has surrendered 1.2 Mhz spectrum in 1800 Mhz before the deal was cleared,
• At present, the government has capped the amount of spectrum an operator can hold at 50% in each band allocated and 25% of the total airwaves across bands in a service area.
• Airtel had entered into an agreement with Aircel, 74% owned by Malaysia’s Maxis, to acquire rights to use 4G spectrum of Aircel till 2030 across 8 telecom circles, while the rest 26 per cent is with Sindya Securitiesand Investments.
• Acquisition of Aircel’s airwaves would give Airtel pan-India 4G spectrum footprint, matching Reliance Jio Infocomm.