
Aircel, once a major telecommunication service provider in the country, was one of the companies that went bankrupt within 2 years of the launch of Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio made its debut in the telecom sector with its unlimited calling time and super cheap data.
With Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel being the only telecom companies big enough to compete with dirt cheap telecom services, the mobile SIM arena is long gone for any other company as Vodafone Idea (the only other teleco except the two big players) too struggles to maintain its market presence.
Aircel is now planning to re-enter the market and is reportedly in the process of filing an appeal to the NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal) in hopes of getting permission to sell non-spectrum assets such as fibre, enterprise, bulk SMS business and data centre.
Aircel needs the capital in order to pay its of staff’s salaries, since its capital inflow is compromised as it’s in the process of insolvency proceedings.
Since the company had filed for bankruptcy in 2018, it is being assisted by Deloitte, the resolution professional, is the management of the sales of its assets. Aircel and the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) are currently in a legal tussle over the spectrum sale.