Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio seems to taking care of every possible thing before the launch of its highly anticipated fourth generation (4G) services in India. The Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) owned company has strived to optimize existing infrastructure while building ambitious new backend infrastructure. The company has also signed deals with many other entities for sharing infrastructure. This has served two purposes – the first being a sharing of costs thereby paving the way of increased profits and more importantly, conserving the environment. The most notable such deal signed by RJIL has been with Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Airtel.
Now, Reliance Jio has signed an agreement to share 500 towers of Videocon Telecom in Uttar Pradesh East, Uttar Pradesh West, Bihar and Jharkhand. The signing of this deal comes barely a few weeks after Mukesh Ambani in his annual address to shareholders promised the rollout of India’s first 4G services in 2015 after a comprehensive trial phase commencing in mid-2014.
Videocon Telecom managing director Arvind Bali said that his company plans to deploy 6,000 additional towers within a year for rolling out its 4G services, which may also be shared with Reliance Jio going forward. The company will also explore additional tie ups with the unit of Reliance Industries for 4G network sharing, optical fibre network sharing, internet broadband services and other mutually conducive opportunities, Bali added. The cooperation between many companies during the developmental phase of fourth-generation phase did raise a few eyebrows but all of this is in the best interests of the companies themselves and ultimately, the consumer.
Analysts say that this sharing of telecom essentials is not unheard of. In fact, that Indian companies are actually collaborating is evidence of a more liberal, progressive market. While the backend that will support these services is sure to be beefed up, many companies are actually contributing heavily in challenging the traditional boundaries of telecom. Reliance Jio, for example has been experiment with live streaming television on its handsets and the company has in fact tied up with many commercially viable and successful news, entertainment and sports channels to offer service on mobile. In addition, with Mukesh Ambani acquiring media behemoth Network 18, the task of content and sharing across the mobile landscape has in fact become easier for RJIL.
The past six months or so have seen RJIL enter into new agreements with a wide variety of businesses – from mobile handset manufacturers to entities controlling telecom towers. With 2014 poised to be a year of intense testing for the Mukesh Ambani-owned company, all eyes will be on the launch of 4G services from one of India’s greatest Private Sector success stories come 2015.