Reliance JioInfocomm, the telecommunication arm of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), has partnered with global companies like Samsung, Ericsson, and Alcatel Lucent to build up a full-fledged 4G ecosystem. Alcatel Lucent has got GPON, FTTx and metro DWDM while Samsung has bagged the radio access and packet core network part. Ericsson will look after the managed services part. However the Indian 4G ecosystem is in infancy -stages and a huge roll-out is expected from JioInfocomm. It has already signed a deal with the global smartphone leader, Samsung to make entry-level smartphone devices in medium budget range. The South Korean global giant is the latest entrant in the telecom equipment market. Apart from this it also commenced the network operations in Mumbai and Delhi. This deal will also bring down the prices of LTE devices substantially.
Alcatel Lucent, European equipment manufacturer, is actively helping JioInfocomm in its experimental processes. The third company, Ericsson has been working with MukeshAmbani led Reliance JioInfocomm for Wi-Fi hotspots. Ericsson also recently acquired BelAir. Post acquisition the company has refocused itself on the Wi-Fi segment with a strong carrier-grade WiFi portfolio, technological expertise, IPR, new customer base and market relationships.“This is for deployment in Delhi and Mumbai only right now but it is likely to be expected to other cities as when they launch. Ericsson would be setting up around 200 Wi-Fi spots as part of the deal,” said an official from Ericsson. Other noted players like Nokia Siemens Network, Chinese vendors like Huawei and ZTE are not the part of the deal.
Mukesh Ambani announced in the recently held RIL’ Annual General Meeting that India will become number one in digital content delivery. He also added that 4G network will change the lives of 1.2 billion Indians forever. To cope up with the challenges and to stipulate the launch, JioInfocomm will also recruit around 7,000 people, which will triple its current head count from 3,000. It will become the country’s pioneer to launch pan-India 4G services. The company is planning to launch the services in metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. It has also started preparations to launch the services in 40 other tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Reliance JioInfocomm has charted out an aggressive roadmap for the upcoming year. The company will also invest a total of INR 150,000 crore over the next three years in all its five major verticals.