Reliance Industries to Acquire Stake in Infotel- Pan India BWA Winner
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire a substantial stake in Infotel Broadband Services (P) Ltd, which has emerged as a successful bidder in all the 22 circles (Pan India) of the auction for Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) Spectrum conducted by the DoT.
RIL said that it will invest about Rs 4,800 crore by way of subscription to fresh equity capital at par to be issued by Infotel Broadband. Post this investment, RIL will own 95% of the equity and Infotel Broadband will be a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited.
RIL claims that the broadband opportunity as a new frontier of knowledge economy in which it can take a leadership position and provide India with an opportunity to be in the forefront among the countries providing world-class 4G network and services. A single 20 MHz TDD spectrum when used with LTE (Long Term Evolution) has the potential of providing greater capacity when compared to existing communication infrastructure in the country.
India has witnessed substantial growth in the mobile subscriber base over the last decade. RIL’s initiative will usher in a wireless broadband revolution in both, the urban and the rural areas all across the country by providing end-to-end data solutions for business enterprises, social organizations, educational and healthcare institutions and Indian consumers. This will give a fillip to rural upliftment by seamlessly connecting information and markets to the rural population on a real-time basis and will help bridge the rural-urban divide in terms of access to knowledge and information.
RIL plans to create world class state- of-the-art technology using an asset light strategy. RIL will forge several strategic relations with a host of leading global technology players, service providers, infrastructure providers, application developers, device manufacturers and others to leapfrog India to the 4G revolution.
Commenting on the initiative, Mr. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited said “We see this as the next wave of value creation opportunity in the wireless broadband space. We believe this will pole-vault India’s economy into the digital world at an accelerated pace while creating next generation tools that will enhance productivity and create world-class consumer experiences.”
The much-anticipated and much delayed mobile number portability (MNP) in the country will not become a reality before September 30, said an official today.
“The MNP will be implemented by September 30,” MTNL chairman and managing director Kuldip Singh told CIOL on the sidelines of an event here.
Though, after a series of postponement, the Department of Telecommunications had asked the mobile telecom players to implement the MNP by June 30, it was reported that some telecom players including MTNL and BSNL are not ready with equipment to offer MNP.
Earlier, Telecom Minister A.Raja had said that MNP will be launched initially in the southern cities of Bangalore and Chennai and then extended to all other cities of the country.
The service allows users to switch mobile-services providers without having to change their phone numbers.
©CyberMedia News
something wrong,
Just Rs4800 to get pan india BWA license??????????????
and Rs12580cr for infotel???????????
I think RIL will be eyeing Aircel now.Aircel wants to wrap up the business and was looking for a buyer.Aircel have pan india license.The stage is set for merger & acquisitions.
@Merc
You are right . Reliance has chosen LTE
In an important victory for Qualcomm, Reliance Industries indicated it would use the US-based technology company’s standard for wireless broadband services rather than the rival Wimax standard.
Best of Luck RIL.
It is looking nice to listen that RIL has acquired Infotel, Who won PAN India BWA license.
Hope RIL will really help to decrease broadband price in India.
best luck ril infotel