Reliance Jio joins COAI as a core member

Core membership at COAI, which lobbies for GSM operators in India, restricted to valid unified licence holders

Mukesh Ambani controlled Reliance Jio Infocomm has joined industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) as a core member.

The core membership at COAI, which lobbies for GSM operators in India, is restricted to valid unified licences holders. Before Reliance Jio joining the association, COAI had six core members — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Unitech Wireless (now Telewings Communications), Videocon Communications (now Videocon Telecom).

The core members get voting rights within the association, and the voting power is linked to the companies' adjusted gross revenue (AGR). As Relience Jio is yet to start commercial operations, its voting power will be limited for the time being.

Besides its core members, it has 12 associate members. Besides the equipment makers, COAI has opened the associate membership to social media companies and has plans to open further for e-commerce companies like Flipkart and Amazon.

Last week, Facebook has joined the association as an associate member. Other associate members include Alcatel-Lucent India, Cisco Systems India, Ericsson India, IBM India, GTL Infrastructure, Huawei Technologies, Indus Towers, Intel Corporation, Nokia Networks, Qualcomm India, ZTE India.

“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,” Sandip Das, Managing Director, Reliance Jio Infocomm said in a statement.

Rajan S Mathews, Director General, COAI, said: “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.”