Road to 5G: Top 3 telcos look to spend over $30 bn to step up infra

Kolkata: India’s top three telecom operators are looking at a collective capital expenditure of a shade over $30 billion (Rs 2.1 lakh crore) on base stations and fibre infrastructure alone for rolling out ultra-fast fifth generation or 5G mobile networks, said analysts.

Bharti AirtelNSE 0.85 % and Vodafone Idea, they said, would require to spend $10 billion capex each over the next five years, while Reliance Jio Infocomm’s incremental 5G capex outgo is estimated lower at around $8 billion as the Mukesh Ambani-led operator already has more 5G-ready fiberised towers than the incumbents, having already spent around $2 billion on tower fiberisation.