Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom business of the billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL), is facing a big challenge because the LTE 4G company is not getting adequate right-of-way to lay underground cables in various parts of the country.
The challenge situation is hitting the progress in network expansion. Reliance Jio is expected to unveil 4G LTE in September this year. Recently, Reliance Industries said it would acquire TV 18 media group to boost its 4G offerings.
“Getting right-of-way in several parts of the country is becoming a problem for Reliance Jio. But things will be sorted out as early as possible,” a company official told PTI.
Other companies were also facing similar problems, he said adding “rules for getting right-of-way vary from place to place”.
The progress in network completion was good in some states in south India but problems existed in Mumbai, parts of Maharashtra and various other places across the country.
The company had already got the right-of-way in Kolkata civic area after the intervention of West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
The company was in the process of laying down underground optical fiber cables (OFC) to roll out 2G voice and 4G LTE data services pan-India.
Reliance Jio is also targeting the enterprise business segment in a big way. Typically, the enterprise business segment contributed 20 per cent to 25 per cent of overall revenue of a telecom company.
The company had bought 2300 Mhz and 1800 Mhz spectrum to roll out data and voice services across the country. A part of the 2300 Mhz spectrum will be used to provide LTE HD voice services. Reliance Jio is looking at utilizing both TD-LTE and FD-LTE spectrum for rolling out both voice and data services in India.
Its main challenge is to source cost effective smartphones that support both voice and LTE data since data alone networks will not be a viable business in the country.
