MUMBAI: Idea Cellular is not overly concerned about being saddled with a bill of more than Rs30,000 crore that it bid for airwaves in the just-ended auction, unlike investors who dragged the stock down on Friday. India’s third-largest phone company sees things differently—it now has clarity about the next 20 years, which includes tapping the country’s surging data growth.“We only have to look ahead,” Idea chief executive Himanshu Kapania told ET in an interview. He said that the airwaves that have been acquired mean Idea can launch improved 3G services on the cost-efficient 900 Mhz band.With 3G in Kolkata, the Aditya Birla group company will be covering 80%, or 13 circles, of the pricier and higher-margin, high-speed data market. For the future, Idea already has airwaves to deploy 4G services across 10 circles, accounting for 61% of the company’s current revenue, Kapania added.“We are among the only operators to have renewed, or gotten new licences, in 16 circles since 2012, covering 85% of our overall revenue,” he said. This gives the mobile phone operator business certainty over the next two decades, or the life of a licence, for a bulk of its revenue-generating service areas.Idea was the highest bidder in the auction, making bids worth Rs 30,100 crore, jostling with bigger rivals Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India, apart from Reliance Jio Infocomm, to win back its airwaves in nine expiring circles where it held the cost-efficient 900 Mhz (2G) band and which made up more than 70% of its revenue. It also bought airwaves in the 1800 MHz band in six circles and the 2100MHz, or 3G bandwidth, in Kolkata. The 900 Mhz band can also be used to offer 3G services, under new rules.“We now have the ability to launch better-quality 3G services in the 900MHz band in premium markets of Delhi and Maharashtra,” Kapania said, adding that Mumbai would make a logical fit, but the price of 3G airwaves in that circle was too costly. Similarly, the company chose not to bid for 3G airwaves in Delhi and Andhra Pradesh, he added.The government has promised to sell more 3G spectrum in a year.The high cost of Idea’s airwaves dragged the stock down 5% at Friday’s close to Rs171.45 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, underperforming the broader market. Investors fear higher debt will hurt the company’s profitability, and thus its ability to undertake the capital expenditure that’s needed.“We believe Idea will be significantly constrained in the scenario of rapid growth of data in India as it would have inadequate spectrum in key markets,” said an investor note by Deutsche Bank. It explained that while bigger competitors Vodafone India and Bharti Airtel captured incremental amounts of spectrum, nearly 90% of Idea’s budget was spent on renewals.Of the total bid amount, Idea expects to pay Rs 7,732 crore as upfront costs and the remaining in 10 equal annual installments starting after a moratorium of two years.Kapania clarified that bids were made on a case-by-case basis per circle, and where the company doesn’t have data airwaves it doesn’t need them in the near term because those markets are barely ready for 2G data.He has said earlier that in many rural and semi-urban areas, there are still new voice users to be tapped, putting the figure at as many as 350 million.Brokerage BNP Paribas wasn’t too worried about the impact of the auctions on the mobile phone carrier. While earnings growth could pause for the next two years as it absorbs spectrum amortization and interest costs, the balance sheet is not as much of a concern, said BNP Paribas analyst Kunal Vora.“Net debt-to-EBITDA should max out at 3.7 times in FY15 and decline to 2.1 times by FY17. We expect Idea to generate INR27800 crore in EBITDA over FY16-17, and expect capex of INR10050 crore, translating into INR17700 crore in free cash flows,” he said in his note.