Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited has tied up with Bharti Infratel, a subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises, to utilise the latter’s telecom tower infrastructure to launch its services across the country, where the two companies have decided to adopt ‘arm’s length’ approach on pricing, which will be based on prevailing market rates.
“This agreement is in line with our earlier comprehensive telecom infrastructure sharing arrangement with Bharti Airtel 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,” Reliance Jio Managing Director Sanjay Mashruwala said in a statement.
According to Bharti Infratel CEO D. S. Rawat, “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.”
Bharti Infratel has 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. Similarly, Reliance Jio is the first telecom operator to hold pan-India Unified Licence, and plans to launch its services this year. Reliance Jio, which has been given over two-crore phone numbers, started first trial of its 4G services in Delhi, Mumbai and Jamnagar.
