Reliance Jio Infocomm, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries (RIL), has received facility-based operator license to set up its internet point of presence, offer internet transit and peering services as well as data and voice roaming services in Singapore.
The FBO license, which is not a telecom operator license, will enable the Indian 4G LTE telecom service provider to buy, operate and sell undersea and/or terrestrial fibre connectivity, RIL said in a statement.
Reliance Jio, as an when it launches 4G across the country, will compete with Sunil Mittal-promoted Bharti Airtel which has unveiled LTE on TD-LTE network in Kolkatta, Bangalore, Pune and Chandigarh.
A couple of months ago, Reliance Jio signed the Construction and Maintenance Agreement (C&MA) and the Supply Contract for Bay Of Bengal Gateway Cable System (BBG) in Kuala Lumpur, to provide connectivity between South East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East, Europe, Africa and to the Far East Asia.
In another development, it received Letter of Intent (LoI) from the Department of Telecommunications for award of Unified Licence with Authorisation for all services under Unified License in all service areas.
Reliance Jio Infocomm, which has around 4,000 employees at present, is on an hiring spree. The company says its resources grew to 4,000 from less than 700 employees last year. Most of them are based in RJIL’s Navi Mumbai campus.
Indicating that RIL is serious about its 4G LTE investment, Reliance Jio has already hired senior management team to execute the project.
In addition, Reliance Jio has finalized the key vendor and supplier partnerships that are required for the launch of services, and is making rapid progress in building the critical infrastructure needed to launch its services.
However, the Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Jio is yet to officially announce the 4G launch plan.
In the past year, Reliance Jio announced agreements with Reliance Communications for inter-city optic fibre sharing, for sharing of up to 45,000 of RCOM’s nationwide telecom towers, and for joint working arrangements to configure the scope of additional towers to be built at new locations.
It also announced agreement for international data connectivity with Bharti to utilise dedicated fiber pair on Bharti’s i2i submarine cable that connects India and Singapore.
