ETISALAT DB TELECOM JOIN HANDS WITH RCOM FOR SHARING INFRASTRUCTURE

Etisalat DB the GSM mobile service operator today announced a long term passive infrastructure sharing agreement with Reliance Communications, which will accelerate Etisalat DB Telecom’s forthcoming roll-out of GSM Mobile and other telecom services in India. Under the terms of the agreements, Etisalat DB and its subsidiary would outsource their Telecom infrastructure requirements for the 15 telecom circles, encompassing end-to-end tower and transmission infrastructure to Reliance Infratel Limited and Reliance Communications Limited, respectively.

Commenting on the strategic alliance, Mr. Mohammad Hassan Omran, Chairman Etisalat said, “This significant development is part of our overall commitment to provide consumers with quality service and reach at the time of launch. As a new entrant in this dynamic market, this alliance provides us with key, strategic advantages that will ensure a robust, speed to market and cost-effective roll-out of services. We are pleased to partner with Reliance Communications and Reliance Infratel, which have an extensive capability as an integrated service provider across the telecom infrastructure value chain. Strategic alliances are an integral part of our plans for growth and Etisalat Group will always be receptive to such alliances which help to enhance the customer experience.”

Mr. Anil Dhirubhai Ambani, Chairman, Reliance ADA Group said, “We are pleased to partner with Etisalat DB through this landmark agreement that will re-define the future of Indian Telecom sector. This win-win agreement demonstrates Reliance Communications capabilities to enable the operators to go-to-market with a bouquet of telecom infrastructure services. This will ensure a faster rollout, optimum costs and a time to market advantage.

This agreement presents large cost optimization benefits with an asset light model, improvement in capital productivity and enhances RCOM group revenues by Rs 10,000 crores. The agreement with Reliance Communications Group is the first and the largest Telecom Infrastructure sharing including Towers and Transmission agreement of its kind in the Indian Telecom landscape and strongly complements Etisalat DB Telecom’s plans for India.

With operations across in Asia, Middle East and Africa Etisalat has built state-of-the-art telecom infrastructure and taken a leadership position of innovation and reliability among regional and international operators. Today, Etisalat offers fixed line services over the Next Generation Network and enables mobile users with a range of services and applications such as GPRS, 3G, 3.5G, 3.75G, BlackBerry, iPhone, MobileCam and others. Internet users too experience value-additions such as free anti-spam and anti-virus programmes, expanded mailboxes, upgrades of broadband connection speeds and other benefits.

In UAE, Saudi Arabia and other markets, Etisalat GSM coverage has reached 100% and 3G coverage reached 99% of populated areas. Offerings include ‘triple play’ service that includes high speed internet, TV and fixed lines through fiber optic. In addition to voice and data networks Etisalat also offers E-Vision cable TV networks. Etisalat has recently completed the nationwide upgrade of its 3G mobile network to enable mobile broadband download speeds of up to 14.4 Megabits per second (Mbps) across the UAE and other benefits. Globally, Etisalat has roaming agreements with 520 operators.

Reliance Communications Group provides a unified approach with comprehensive telecom infrastructure sharing services including tower infrastructure, transmission connectivity to the telecom sites, Bandwidth/Fibre options, domestic and International long distance carriage services, collocation of BSC & other core network equipments. Reliance Infratel, a subsidiary of Reliance Communications, is India’s first nationwide passive infrastructure company offering plug-n-play facilities to provide mobile services across over 20,000 towns and over 5 lakh Indian villages. The next-generation technology-agnostic assets of Reliance Infratel include 50,000 telecom towers with over 2 lakh site tenancy capability and over 1.8 lakh kms of nationwide optic enabling transmission connectivity.