Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh D Ambani today said Reliance Jio Infocomm will offer 4G LTE services using FD-LTE on 1800 MHz and TD-LTE on 2300 MHz band through an integrated ecosystem.
Reliance Jio Infocomm officially said it bought spectrum in the 1800 MHz band for Rs 11,054 crore during the spectrum auction that concluded on Thursday. TelecomLead.com estimated that the investment of Reliance Jio would be around Rs 10,000 crore in spectrum auction and it did not become the top 1 or 2 telecom players in terms of their bids.
Vodafone has emerged as the number one telecom operator during the spectrum auction, ahead of Bharti Airtel. Both invested heavily to gain their telecom circles of Mumbai and Delhi in the 900 MHz band.
While Airtel acquired spectrum for Rs 18,530 crore, Vodafone will invest Rs 19,600 crore for both 1800 MHz and 900 MHz. Idea Cellular’s investment in spectrum will be Rs 10,400 crore, ahead of Reliance Jio Infocomm’s Rs 11,054 crore. Uninor will spend a meager Rs 845 crore. Both Aircel and Reliance Communications are yet to officially announce their investments.
According to Mukesh Ambani, with this acquisition, Reliance Jio will be the holder of the largest quantum of liberalized spectrum and with the longest residual spectrum life.
Reliance Jio plans to opt to make an upfront payment of 33 percent with the balance payable in 10 equal annual installments after a two year moratorium. It has acquired the 1800 MHz spectrum at 31 percent premium to reserve price. Winning bidders of the 900 MHz spectrum paid between 55 percent to 110 percent premium over the reserve price.
In a statement, Reliance Jio Infocomm plans to use this spectrum, ranging from 2×5 MHz to 2×7 MHz in each of these 14 circles, in conjunction with its pan India 2300 MHz spectrum to address the expected surge in demand for digital services as well as to enhance in-building coverage.
Packet core network plans
The telecom operator is deploying an enhanced packet core network to create futuristic high capacity infrastructure to handle huge demand for data and voice. In addition to high speed data, the 4G network will provide voice services from / to non-RJIL networks.
There are several mobile phones and devices available which have the capability to operate both TD-LTE and FD-LTE technologies in the 1800 MHz and 2300 MHz bands as well as conventional 2G / 3G networks. In any case, Wi-Fi enabled 2G / 3G device can access RJIL’s services through an affordable pocket router.
