Need to raise data tariff but no premium for 5G services: Airtel's Gopal Vittal

livemint.com:

₹200 to ₹300. But Airtel will not charge a premium for its 5G services, and aims to start its fixed wireless access (FWA) services by next year, pricing it on a par with broadband services, he said. The telco is also open to distributing satellite services beyond OneWeb, starting June.

Vittal also spoke about the possibility of diluting equity or listing Airtel Payments Bank once margins improve, and clarified it will not opt for a rights issue, citing adequate operating free cash flows to meet its current needs and for deleveraging. Edited excerpts: Is there headroom to further raise entry-level tariffs? Or do you think it’s time to raise headline tariffs? I think we’ve already done that(raising entry level tariffs). I feel that actually the prices for data are very compressed.

That’s where there’s a big (opportunity). The low entry level prices we moved up, we are now at ₹155 but for 45 GB of data, unlimited calling, unlimited texting, at ₹230 is just way too low, that needs to go up. That’s where the bulk of the industry plays.

Considering that you’re looking at avenues to increase tariffs one way or the other, when would you take the call on pricing 5G plans separately? We don’t believe that 5G should have separate plans or premium plan. For a customer data is data. We believe in segmenting so that if you offer more value to a customer in tangible and intangible forms, you can charge a higher price.

But 5G by itself is not going to drive ARPU. For us, overall tariff table needs to go up. When are you planning the rights issue? Our operating free cash flows are more than adequate to meet both capital requirements as well as any deleveraging that we want to do.