Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, the telecommunication unit of diversified business conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd, has entered into a tower-sharing agreement with the infrastructure provider ATC India Tower Corp Pvt Ltd, according to a stock market disclosure.
Under the terms of the pact, Reliance Jio will use the telecom tower infrastructure of ATC India, which has 11,000 mobile phone towers in the country, to launch its 4G services across the country.
"There is considerable pent up demand for data and 4G has tremendous growth potential. We at ATC India are delighted to offer our country wide network infrastructure to help Reliance Jio in its aggressive nationwide roll-out. We believe this will strengthen our foothold as the leading independent tower company in India,” ATC's COO B Ramanand said in the statement.
Financial details of the agreement, however, were not disclosed in the statement by the two companies.
Reliance Jio bought 4G airwaves in 2010 in an auction by the government, but is yet to launch the services. The company is also the first telecom operator to hold a pan-India unified licence that authorises the company to provide all telecommunication services other than satellite telephony.
The tower sharing pact with ATC India comes after it signed tower-leasing pacts with other local firms, including Reliance Communications, Bharti Infratel and Viom Networks, apart from Bharti Infratel's parent Bharti Airtel to share network.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)