Country's top telecom operator also said the current voice tariffs are unsustainbly low and it will look at opportunities to increase prices going forward.
"We believe that the price which has been proposed for 700 MHz just makes it very expensive for us to buy any of the spectrum, so we believe that we cannot afford to buy that spectrum at that price," Bharti Airtel MD and CEO (India & South Asia) Gopal Vittal said during an investor call.
Vittal though welcomed Trai's proposal on putting entire spectrum in 2100 MHz band for auction.
"We are pleased to see the regulator's proposal on putting 3 to 4 blocks of 2100 MHz spectrum. Its the right move to put all the spectrum for auction. This will decongest networks as well as improve voice quality and address call drop problem," he added.
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"This is a good capacity spectrum and we have some experience in managing this spectrum...We do have gaps in eight circles which we will be keen to fill at some point of time," Vittal said.
Regarding voice pricing, Vittal said the current rates are unsustainably low and need to move up.
"We are actually quite disappointed that voice pricing has eroded this quarter. It is a competitive market and in the past we have had serious competition from smaller players. In the last quarter, we also saw significant competition from leading players and that has led to decline in voice pricing, which is disappointing," Vittal said.
"We will continue to look for opportunities to raise voice pricing and we are hopeful that the rest of the players also see some sanity in the way voice pricing today is being played," he added.
Regarding capex, the company said it expects to end the year between USD 3-3.2 billion.
"Our initial capex guidance for the full year was USD 3 billion, which we upped to USD 3.2-3.4 billion. With cumulative capex for the first nine months at USD 2.2 billion, we should end the year between USD 3-3.2 billion," Bharti Airtel global CFO Nilanjan Roy said.