Reliance Jio, GTL Infra ink tower-sharing deal

Mumbai: Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd has signed an agreement to share telecom towers of GTL Infrastructure Ltd, the companies said on Thursday.

GTL Infrastructure, together with Chennai Network Infrastructure Ltd, runs more than 27,800 towers spread across 22 telecom areas in India and serves all the major telecom operators.

This is the seventh tower-sharing agreement that Reliance Jio Infocomm has forged with telecom tower owners in India.

Prior to Thursday's partnership with GTL Infra, Reliance Jio signed a sharing agreement with Ascend Telecom Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd on 3 June for 4,500 towers. On 15 May, Reliance Jio signed an agreement with Tower Vision India Pvt. Ltd for 8,400 towers. On 21 April, Reliance Jio signed an agreement with ATC India Tower Corp. for their 11,000 towers.

On 17 March, it signed an agreement with Viom Networks for 42,000 towers. On 4 March, it entered into an infrastructure sharing agreement with Bharti Infratel Ltd, which included use of its 35,000 towers. Reliance Jio has also signed three deals with Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications Ltd for inter-city and intra-city optic fibre and infrastructure that includes the use of the latter's 45,000 towers.

"Our mission is to launch a pan India next-generation voice and data services. We will build the same through a judicious combination of own build and rented infrastructure. This agreement with GTL Infra is not only a step in that direction but will also help us accelerate our roll-out," said Sanjay Mashruwala, managing director, Reliance Jio Infocomm.

"The launch of 4G networks and the rise in the consumption of data services is a growth driver for tower companies, and we at GTL Infra are geared up to capture the opportunity. Our portfolio will play an important role in rolling out broadband networks especially in regions like North East, and South where we hold a leadership position," said Charudatta Naik, group chief executive officer of Global Group, the holding company of GTL Infra.

Shares of GTL closed at Rs.3.01, up 4.51%, while the benchmark Sensex closed at 27,112.21 points, gaining 1.81%.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.