The telecom sector may be headed for a bout of consolidation but Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio plans to roll out 4G services on its own, without acquiring an existing player.
“It is highly unlikely that we will acquire someone, unless the valuation is very attractive. We ourselves have put our greenfield infrastructure,” said a senior Reliance executive.
Over the last year, the buzz in the market suggested that Reliance Jio may acquire the assets of one of the struggling telecom companies, including Aircel and Reliance Communications, in a bid to speed up the roll-out.
Reliance Jio won spectrum in 2010, but is yet to launch services. Under the licence conditions, the company is expected to complete the roll-out within five years.
The executive told Business Line that Reliance Jio will fulfil its roll-out obligations comfortably. “We are targeting to launch services this Diwali (October) or December. We are confident of rolling it out to meet licence conditions, as it is just three years since we got the licence,” he said.
Reliance Jio had earlier inked infrastructure-sharing deals with Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications.
In addition to telecom services the company is planning to offer television channels on its fourth generation (4G) broadband network.
Entertainment bouquet As part of the entertainment bouquet, Reliance Jio is planning live TV and Video-on-Demand, with an HD viewing experience. This also includes Catch-up TV, which eliminates the need to record programmes.
But the spectrum band could be a key challenge for the company. Compared to other frequency bands, such as 800 MHz and 900 MHz, the 2300 MHz band is considered to be inefficient in terms of coverage.
Experts say that it will be difficult for any company to offer a pan-India carpet network using 2300 MHz alone. It will therefore be interesting to see how Reliance Jio bids in the upcoming auction for spectrum.