It seems Reliance Jio Infocomm, the data services venture of Reliance Industries signs a new tower infrastructure partner every month, to launch its 4G services in India (is it really going to happen ever?). This time around, it is with Tower Vision India which has signed a master service agreement with Reliance Jio to share telecom tower infrastructure comprising of 8,400 towers across the country. This is Reliance Jio’s sixth tower infrastructure sharing partnership in the country after signing similar deals with ATC India last month, Viom Networks and Bharti Infratel in March this year, Reliance Communications (RCOM) in June 2013 and its competitor Bharti Airtel in December 2013. Through these tie-ups, the company apparently has access to around 190,000 towers across the country. In the release, Reliance Jio Managing Director Sanjay Mashruwala mentions that they will be offering 4G services through a combination of towers they are renting from these partners and those that they are constructing on their own. It apparently plans to construct around 25,000-30,000 towers on its own. Other Infrastructure Agreements Besides tower sharing agreements, Reliance Jio also has a tie-up with RCOM to share the latter’s city fibre infrastructure across the country. This deal covered nearly 500,000 fiber pair kilometers across 300 cities and towns in India, for which RCOM had mentioned that the pricing will be at ‘arm’s length’ based on prevailing market rates. Jio also has a tie-up with RCOM for sharing its nationwide inter-city fibre optic network infrastructure. Jio had also earlier partnered with Airtel for international data connectivity and had joined a consortium to set up a submarine cable system via the Bay of Bengal in April last year.
