Reliance Jio Infocomm Joins COAI as Core Member

"We are delighted that Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) has joined us in our common endeavour to roll-out innovative and affordable mobile broadband services to the citizens of India," COAI's Director General Rajan S Mathews said in a statement.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) represents GSM telecom operators such as Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular, Uninor among others. RJIL Managing Director Sandip Das said the company sees an opportunity for the policy makers and the industry to be aligned with respect to understanding what stands between the average Indian and their crying demand for better broadband.

"We are therefore pleased to join the COAI, where along with other operators, we hope to create an operating environment that will help us realise this ambition for all Indians as an industry, in the overall context of our nation's development," Das said. Mukesh Ambani-led RJIL holds pan India broadband wireless access spectrum that can be used for 4G services.

COAI in the past had taken a stand that was not in favour of Reliance Jio on various issues. The two had indulged in a war words on the issue of the Department of Telecom issuing a unified licence to RJIL against payment of about Rs. 1,673 crore in 2013. With unified licence, RJIL can offer full-fledged mobile services, a development vehemently opposed by COAI alleging the company was given its licence at a cheap price. RJIL earlier held licence for only Internet services. Both the entities early this year had again locked horns in a debate over spectrum fees that paid annually for usage.

The industry body was against issuing 4 crore mobile numbers as sought by RJIL initially from DoT and pressed that the companies should be issued maximum of 10 lakh mobile numbers per circle only.

With RJIL on board as a core member, the number of COAI's core members has gone up to 7. COAI's Core Membership comprises telecom companies that hold a valid licence from the Government of India for provisioning of communication services. Recently, social media giant Facebook had joined COAI as an associate member.

"Together, with Reliance Jio and our other members, we look forward to working with the government to achieve the ambitious targets enshrined in the government's agenda of creating the new 'i-way', smart cities and broadband for all," Mathews said. COAI members jointly have about 68 percent of subscribers and around 71 percent of revenue share in the market.

In addition to fixed and wireless broadband connectivity, RJIL also has plans to provider various digital services in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment. RJIL in the past had entered into agreements with telecom companies including COAI member Bharti Airtel and its mobile tower arm Bharti Infratel.