Airtel snaps up Augere for extra airwaves

India’s largest mobile provider by subscribers, Bharti Airtel, has agreed to purchase Augere Wireless Broadband India, the Economic Times writes, although no details of the transaction have been made public. Augere was awarded 4G spectrum in 2010, but scrapped its rollout plans in 2012, citing regulatory uncertainty in the wake of the mass cancellation of 2G licences in February that year. The company holds 20MHz of spectrum in the 2300MHz band in Madhya Pradesh. The acquisition is expected to help Airtel expand the reach of its Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks ahead of the launch of 4G start-up Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) later this year.