Reliance Jio finalises key pacts for roll-out of LTE services in India

RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd (RJIL), a subsidiary of RIL, will provide "reliable fast Internet connectivity on pan India basis".

Without giving timeframe for the launch, Ambani in the company's Annual Report for 2012-13 said that RJIL, formerly Infotel Broadband Services Ltd, has finished the planning for the infrastructure requirement for the pan-Indian project.

"RJIL has finalised key agreements with its technology partners, service providers, infrastructure providers, application partners, device manufacturers and other strategic partners for the project," he said.

Ambani also added that the firm has finalised the planning for venture's infra requirements.

"RJIL has also completed the detailed planning for Pan India implementation of the infrastructure needed for the project," he added.

On growth opportunities for broadband services in India, Ambani said that India has the potential to surpass the world and become a leader in delivery of digital content.

"From less than 5 million mobile users in 2001, India has grown to more than 860 million mobile users achieving more than 70 percent teledensity. The enormous growth of the telecommunications in the country has not been accompanied by a corresponding growth of the broadband connections.

"Today, broadband in India has only around 1 percent market penetration (15 million broadband connections - excluding Internet access by wireless phone subscribers) compared to other European and Asian countries," Ambani said.

RJIL, which is the only private player with Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum in all the 22 telecom circles of India, plans to provide reliable fast Internet connectivity through the 20 MHz, contiguous, pan-India BWA spectrum, he added.

"In addition to connectivity, RJIL also plans to enable end-to-end solutions that address the entire value chain across various digital services in key domains of national interest such as, education, healthcare, security, financial services," Ambani said.

RJIL plans to use TDD LTE technology for its country wide next generation network deployment to provide connectivity and related digital services to its customers, he added.

"In addition to LTE and its future versions, it will continue to evaluate and deploy other technologies, both wireless and wireline, to offer comprehensive broadband solutions to consumers, small businesses, enterprises, government and other entities," he said.

RJIL will focus on making available all the components of the entire digital value chain.