Reliance Jio, Bharti Infratel in tower-sharing pact

Reliance Jio Infocomm on Tuesday signed a pact to share towers with telecom infrastructure company Bharti Infratel, to launch its services across the country. “The pricing would be at arm’s length, based on prevailing market rates,” the companies said. Bharti Infratel has 35,000 towers; it also has 42 per cent in Indus Towers. Tuesday’s deal will give Reliance Jio access to 82,000 telecom towers across the 22 telecom circles. Sanjay Mashruwala, managing director of Reliance Jio said, “This agreement is in line with our earlier comprehensive telecom infrastructure-sharing arrangement with Bharti Airtel, aimed at avoiding duplication of infrastructure, wherever possible, and preserving capital and the environment.”

In December 2013, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel had signed an agreement to share telecom infrastructure. Besides sharing the towers of Bharti Infratel and Indus Towers, Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel will also use each other's optic fibre networks.

 

D S Rawat, chief executive of Bharti Infratel, said, "We are delighted with this agreement to offer our world-class telecom infrastructure to Reliance Jio. Our vast footprint and high network uptime levels will offer significant synergies of faster access to market and lower operational costs. The agreement will also benefit our existing customers with lower rentals and energy charges as a result of additional sharing. We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial relationship with Reliance Jio."

In June 2013, Reliance Jio had singed a deal with Reliance Communications to rent its towers across the country for Rs 12,000 crore. According to the deal, Reliance Jio would use 45,000 of Reliance Communications' 50,000 towers.