Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL), the telecom arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), has inked a telecom tower-sharing agreement with independent telecom tower firm Viom Networks. However, the financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
Reliance Jio has entered into a master services agreement with Viom Networks to use the latter's more than 42,000 telecom towers in the country.
"This agreement is in line with our mission of a pan-India launch spanning next-generation voice and data services and leveraging existing telecom infrastructure,” said Sanjay Mashruwala, Managing Director, Reliance Jio.
Reliance Jio holds a unified license and is currently building a network to offer next generation high-speed data services. The company believes that the Indian market is highly underserviced and there is a deep demand for high speed internet connectivity, rich communication services, and various digital services in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, financial services, Government citizen interfaces and entertainment.
“From a conventional tower company, we are transforming ourselves as an innovation-driven, data-centric infra solutions provider,” said Syed Safawi, Chief Executive Officer of Viom Networks.
Viom Networks, a joint venture between Tata Teleservices and SREI Infrastructure, is India’s largest independent telecommunications infrastructure company.
RJIL, which holds 1800 MHz spectrum across 14 Circles and 2300 MHz across 22 circles, plans to launch services by October or December this year. In addition to telecom services, the company is planning to offer TV channels on its fourth generation (4G) broadband network.
The company had earlier entered into a similar agreement with Bharti Infratel, a subsidiary of the country’s largest telecom operator, Bharti Airtel. Bharti Infratel has more than 82,000 telecom towers, of which it owns about 35,000 and the rest are through its 42 per cent equity interest in Indus Towers.
Earlier, Reliance Jio had inked a similar agreement with Reliance Communications to utilise up to 45,000 ground and rooftop-based towers. Prior to that, the companies had signed an inter-city optic fibre sharing agreement.
Reliance Industries Ltd, Reliance Jio’s parent company, had
Earlier joined a consortium of global telecom companies to set up a submarine cable system linking Malaysia and Singapore to West Asia. The sub-sea cable system is expected to carry commercial traffic by 2014-end.