Reliance Industries’ will-we-ever-see-it data services venture Reliance Jio Infocomm has inked a tower infrastructure sharing pact with Viom Networks, a joint venture between Tata Teleservices and SREI Infrastructure. As per the master services agreement, Reliance Jio will be using Viom Networks' pan India passive telecom infrastructure comprising of over 42,000 telecom towers. The deal period or the financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed. This is Reliance Jio's fourth tower infrastructure sharing partnership in the country. Prior to this, it had signed a tower sharing deal worth Rs 12,000 crore with Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications (RCOM) in June 2013. As part of this deal, Reliance Jio Infocomm leased 45,000 ground and rooftop based towers for its 4G services and stated plans to create joint working arrangements with RCOM to configure additional towers to be built at new locations. Earlier this month, Reliance Jio had signed a similar tower sharing infrastructure agreement with Bharti Infratel, allowing Jio to utilize Infratel’s tower infrastructure across the country, with the pricing at ‘arm’s length’ based on prevailing market rates. It had also tied up with its competitor Bharti Airtel to share optic fibre, submarine cable networks, towers and Internet broadband services in December 2013. The company had then said this agreement was done to avoid duplication of infrastructure and it could be further extended to roaming on 2G, 3G and 4G services in the future. Jio had earlier partnered Airtel for international data connectivity. It also has a tie-up with RCOM for sharing its nationwide inter-city fibre optic network infrastructure and is in negotiations with RCOM for…
