India’s telecom operators may own the spectrum, but at the country’s newest airports and office towers, they just don’t control the network anymore.

Navi Mumbai International Airport gave them a reality check in late December. Adani Airport Holdings, the company that operates the airport, asked telcos—Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, and Vodafone Idea—to cough up Rs 92 lakh every month to access the building’s built-in 5G network and provide services to passengers.

It resulted in a standoff between the parties, leaving passengers at the airport stranded in a network-dead zone. It’s also one of the early signs of a deeper change in India’s telecom........

© The Ken