Reliance Jio and Bharti Infratel sign deal to share tower infrastructure

Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, the telecom service arm of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) and Bharti Infratel, India's leading provider of telecom tower infrastructure, today announced the signing of a master services agreement under which Reliance Jio would utilise the telecom tower infrastructure of Bharti Infratel to launch its services across the country.

As per the agreement, the pricing would be at 'arm's length,' based on prevailing market rates, Reliance Industries stated in a release.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, the first telecom operator to hold Pan India Unified Licence and Bharti Infratel had, earlier, signed a preliminary agreement over infrastructure sharing.

''This agreement 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,'' Sanjay Mashruwala, managing director, Reliance Jio, said.

''We are delighted with this agreement to offer our world-class telecom infrastructure to Reliance Jio. Our vast footprint and high network uptime levels will offer significant synergies of faster access to market and lower operational costs. The agreement would also benefit our existing customers with lower rentals and energy charges as a result of additional sharing,'' added D S Rawat, CEO of Bharti Infratel Limited.

Bharti Infratel, with a consolidated portfolio of over 82,000 telecom towers, which includes over 35,000 of its own towers and the balance from its 42 per cent equity interest in Indus Towers, is India's leading provider of tower and related infrastructure.

The company, with presence in all 22 telecom circles in the country, is one of the world's largest tower infrastructure providers.

This licence authorises RJIL to provide all telecommunication services except 'global mobile personal communication by satellite service' i.e. satellite phone connections.

RJIL holds spectrum in1800 MHz (across 14 circles) and 2300 MHz (across 22 circles) capable of offering fourth generation (4G) wireless services.

RJIL is setting up a pan India telecom network to provide 4th generation high speed internet connectivity, rich communication services and various digital services on pan India basis in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, financial services, government citizen interfaces and entertainment.

(Also see: Bharti Airtel, Etisalat enter infrastructure deal).