Mukesh begins talks with Anil on infra sharing

Right after it returned to the telecom sector by acquiring Infotel Broadband, Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries (RIL) began discussions with brother Anil Ambani's mobile service provider, Reliance Communications (RCom), for a possible sharing of infrastructure.

The agreement would try to cover the sharing of towers and optic fibre network for 10-15 years, people close to the development said. Reliance Infratel, a subsidiary of RCom, has about 50,000 towers across the country.

The tie-up with RCom, the second largest telecom company, would enable RIL to reduce the roll-out time for its network, beside saving cost.  The agreement, sources say, is likely to be finalised in the next one to two months.

Meanwhile, Anil Ambani, through RCom, said he welcomed the entry of his elder brother, with whom he had been fighting vigorously and publicly over the past five years, into the same sector to become his competitor.

"We welcome the entry of Reliance Industries into the high-potential wireless broadband space. As telecom infrastructure and content service providers, we look forward to offer our services to RIL and other BWA (broadband wireless access) players, even while we compete for customers in the market place through our choice of different technologies," a Reliance ADA group spokesperson said.

More characteristically, an RIL spokesperson declined to comment on this issue.

<b>Tech togetherness</b><br>
Apart from today's talks of a new collaboration between the formerly warring siblings, the two brothers' companies also expressed agreement on technology. They both supported LTE, or Long-Term Evolution technology. LTE is a fourth-generation radio technology, designed to increase speed and the capacity of mobile telephone networks. It is considered the best currently available. 

Initially, RIL-Infotel may launch WiMax services and move to LTE as and when it is available, another person involved in the development said. The company said a single 20-MHz TDD spectrum when used with LTE had the potential of providing greater capacity when compared to existing communication infrastructure.

RCom says it prefers an LTE standard that offers a single evolution path to both CDMA and GSM networks. The WiMax system has weakened after operators such as Clearwire and Yota moved to LTE, it added.

LTE would have faster data speeds as compared to WiMax. Besides, voice services can also be launched through LTE and it would have a wider coverage area. Both technologies work on the same frequency, 2.3GHz. There is no restriction on the technology companies can use to provide services for wireless broadband, be it WiMax or LTE.

However, LTE is expected to be available commercially only in the next two to three years.