Telecom major, Reliance Communications (RCom) will roll out its pan India 4G airwaves starting mid of August in key circles including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata. The operators are also expected to harness its sharing agreement with Reliance Jio Infocomm gradually for a full scale roll out of its 4G services.
The operator is mulling necessary clearances from the Department of Telecom (DoT) for its sharing agreements with Jio Infocomm and expects to receive a go ahead within a week. RCom has already bagged approvals to sell or trade its spectrum in nine circles to Jio Infocomm for INR 4,800 crore and intends to extend this agreement to four more circles for INR 1,000 crore.
The telco in the first phase will unveil its services in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, UP-East and UP-West and has paid INR 6,667 crore to the DoT for liberalizing its 800 MHz airwaves across 20 circles.
RCom has recently shunned its CDMA service and the roll out is aimed to help migrate its 6 million CDMA subscribers to its 4G network services. The company is still awaiting approval from the government to share spectrum in the 800 MHz band with Reliance Jio in circles including Assam, Bihar, Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh, Northeast and Odisha.
The much talked merger between RCom and Aircel is also expected to be sealed in the coming month, as RCom migrates its CDMA customers over its GSM network. As per industry sources, the new entity arising out of the merger is expected to reflect a double digit growth and acquire a subscriber base of 150-160 million.