Reliance Jio, Indus Towers ink infrastructure sharing deal

Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL) has signed an infrastructure agreement with Indus Towers, under which it will use Indus Towers' infrastructure to roll out 4G services across the country.

RJIL, which has firmed up plans to launch 4G services in the country, would lease the infrastructure based on prevailing market rates, the company stated in a release.

This deal will help in avoiding duplication of infrastructure and preserving the environment, the statement added.

''We are continuing our effort to create a new-age network, which will provide innovative and empowering digital solutions to every Indian through our high-speed 4G services. We are building our network through a combination of infrastructure network that we are creating on our own and those that we are renting from quality partners,'' said RJIL managing director Sanjay Mashruwala.

''We already have such tower sharing agreements with all the major players in India, and this relationship with Indus Towers will further accelerate the rollout of our services,'' he added.

Last week, RJIL, controlled by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, entered into a tower-sharing agreement with GTL Infrastructure for more than 27,800 towers across India. Earlier, in June, it had signed an agreement with Ascend Telecom for more than 4,500 towers across India.

The company also entered into an agreement with Tower Vision for 8,400 towers in May, and ATC India for 11,000 towers earlier in April. Similar agreements were also signed with Viom Networks for 42,000 telecom towers and Bharti Infratel for 36,000 towers in March.

RJIL had also signed a comprehensive telecom infrastructure sharing agreement with Bharti Airtel in December last year and a global data connectivity deal earlier, in April 2013. It had also signed various agreements with Reliance Communications for sharing the latter's inter-city and intra-city optic fibre infrastructure.

The agreements with RCom are for nearly 1,20,000 fiber-pair km of optic fibre and 500,000 fibre pair km.

''Our footprint in 15 circles in India coupled with high network uptime levels, cost effective solutions, faster access to market and lower operational costs will provide Reliance Jio a robust and seamless telecom infrastructure. Additionally, our agreement with Reliance Jio will also bring benefits to our existing customers in the form of lower rentals and energy costs,'' said BS Shantharaju, chief executive at Indus Towers.

''At the same time, the infrastructure sharing will help in avoiding duplication of towers and benefit the environment through lower power and fuel consumption. On this new partnership, we look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Reliance Jio,'' Shantharaju added.

Indus Towers is a three-way joint venture among Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, and services 11 operators. The operators are Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Tata Teleservices, Uninor, Reliance Communications, Videocon, MTNL, BSNL and MTS.

RJIL, the telecom subsidiary of India's largest private sector company Reliance Industries, holds a pan India unified licence. RJIL holds spectrum in 1800 MHz (across 14 circles) and 2300 MHz (across 22 circles) allowing it to offer fourth generation (4G) wireless services.