Ambani brothers ink Rs 12,000-cr telecom tower deal

Ambani brothers today announced a Rs 12,000-crore deal, wherein Mukesh will use towers owned by a firm run by his younger sibling Anil for launch of his telecom venture.

In separate but identical statements, the two groups said : "Under the terms of the agreement, Reliance Jio Infocomm will utilise up to 45,000 ground and rooftop based towers across RCom's nationwide network for accelerated roll-out of its state-of-the-art 4G services. "

Reliance Jio Infocomm is the only company which had in 2010 won a pan-India spectrum for 4G services. The company is yet to start commercial services.

The deal comes two months after the two billionaire brothers had struck their first commercial deal when Mukesh agreed to hire Anil's optic fibre network for launch of his telecom venture. The pact was valued at Rs 1,200 crore.

The agreement announced provides for "joint working arrangements to configure the scope of additional towers to be built at new locations to ensure deep penetration and seamless delivery of next generation services," the statements said.

This pact follows the inter-city optic fibre sharing agreement already signed in April 2013 as part of a comprehensive framework of business co-operation between Reliance Jio Infocomm and Reliance Communications, it added.