Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd said it will use the towers of Bharti Infratel for its pan-India LTE rollout, and gave more details of its plans.
The company said it will offer connectivity, communication and various digital services on pan India basis in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, financial services, government citizen interfaces and entertainment. With the Bharti Infratel deal, Reliance Jio will have access to about 85,000 towers in India.
It had earlier inked a deal with Reliance Communication for tower and fiber sharing.
“RJIL is setting up a pan India telecom network to provide to the highly underserviced India market, reliable (4th generation) high speed. RJIL aims to provide anytime, anywhere access to innovative and empowering digital content, applications and services, thereby propelling India into global leadership in digital economy,” it said.
RJIL said it has finalised key agreements with its technology partners, service providers, infrastructure providers, application partners, device manufacturers and other strategic partners for the project.
“These strategic partners have committed significant resources, knowhow and global talent to support planning, deployment and testing activities currently underway. From less than 700 professionals a year back, the RJIL Jio team has grown rapidly to a national footprint of over 3,000 professionals today.”
RJIL entered into agreements with Reliance Communications for mutual sharing of telecom towers and optical fibre network. It has also entered into an arrangement with Bharti Airtel for sharing of telecom towers and optical fibre which can be extended to other services as per mutual agreement of the two partners.
Reliance Jio said it is part of the “Bay Of Bengal Gateway” Cable System, planned to provide connectivity between South East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East, and also to Europe, Africa and to the Far East Asia through interconnections with other existing and newly built cable systems landing in India, the Middle East andFar East Asia.
“RJIL’s subsidiary has been awarded with a Facility Based Operator License (“FBO License”) in Singapore which will allow it to buy, operate and sell undersea and/or terrestrial fibre connectivity, setup its internet point of presence,offer internet transit and peering services as well as data and voice roaming services in Singapore,” the Reliance Industries’ unit said.
“This agreement (with Bharti Infratel) is in line with our earlier comprehensive telecom infrastructure sharing arrangement with Bharti Airtel Limited aimed at avoiding duplication of infrastructure, wherever possible, and to preserve capital and the environment. The agreement will help us with the faster roll out of our services across the country.”
Bharti Infratel is a provider of tower and related infrastructure and it deploys, owns and manages telecom towers and communication structures, for various mobile operators. The has over 35,000 of its own towers, and a 42% equity interest in Indus Towers.