Reliance Communications (RCOM) and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) are reportedly planning to sign a spectrum sharing and trading agreement soon. This comes after the Cabinet recently approved the spectrum trading norms while spectrum sharing norms were approved in August 2015.
The spectrum sharing agreement will allow RJIL to access RCOM’s contiguous 4G bandwidth in the 800 MHz band in 10 circles, namely Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh (East), Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Northeast, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir. With spectrum trading guidelines also approved, it is expected that RJIL will be able to use RCOM’s 800 MHz spectrum in the remaining circles.
The move is expected to augment RJIL’s commercial launch of 4G services in December 2015. On the other hand, it will help RCOM to reduce its debt, which stood at Rs 380 billion as of June 30, 2015.
Meanwhile, Videocon Telecommunications is also in talks with three telecom operators for spectrum sharing and trading and expects to achieve an agreement soon.