Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is leaving no stone un-turned for the launch of its 4G telecom services, Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL). It has recently applied for a Unified License (UL) which will enable the company to offer complete telecom service, including voice.
Earlier, this telecom venture was permitted to offer only the Long-Term Evaluation (LTE) or fourth generation (4G) service. However, the company was not permitted to offer voice services over Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum. Now, this application for UL will increase competition in the over-crowded telecom sector in the country. As the UL is now linked with spectrum, Reliance will be able to offer all telecommunication services using the spectrum. This spectrum was bought by RIL for Rs 12,847 crore in 2010 for all the telecom zones in India.
With the new UL, Reliance Jio will become the first company in the country to have BWA spectrum for all the telecom zones in India. The company will shell out Rs 1,600 crore for this license. Currently, RJIL is focusing to develop its 4G-LTE technology which will provide voice in the 20 megahertz spectrum in the 2.3 gigahertz band. This spectrum band was previously used to transmit data.
At the shareholder’s meeting, Mukesh Ambani had announced that the 4G services will be rolled out in mid-2014. He said, “India’s future is going to be digital. In near future everything done digitally is transformed to a value-creating and life-enriching experience across all strata of the society. This new telecom company will drastically change the lives of 1.2 billion citizens of the country.”
It has already invested around Rs 18,000 crore in the telecom sector and further details about the product and the launch will be shared in the next AGM in June 2014. “Together with our partners, we have charted an ambitious plan for the next 12 months, and we at Reliance Jio foresee making rapid progress over the period towards launching our services across India,” he said.
Reliance Jio Infocomm has finalized its key vendors, device partners, manufacturer and technology partners and infrastructure partners for the initial launch of its services pan-India.
RJIL will start the testing of its messaging feature on the fourth-generation long term evolution, or 4G LTE platforms, the approval of the same came from the Department of Telecommunication (DoT). It has also demanded 10,000 numbers from the government to test its services.