Recap 2015: Reliance Jio Infocomm holding power

All eyes remained fixed on the greenfield 4G behemoth, which in June ended speculations saying it would commercially launch the service in December 2015 itself.

Finally, it went ahead with  soft launch for its employees on December 27 with commercial launch coming up in March-April 2016 .

Reliance Jio Infocomm is easily the one company that has grabbed the largest cumulative share of industry and media attention over the last few years. Part of the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, RJio’s strongest USP has been its edge in terms of holding the largest amount of 4G LTE spectrum resource.

Over the years, however, that advantage has got diluted. RJio’s arch rival Bharti Airtel has already ramped up its 4G LTE spectrum holding from a mere four circles in 2010 to an impressive 14 circles as of date. More importantly, it has commercially launched LTE services in 296 towns and is growing.

Nevertheless, RJio too has bumped up its spectrum holding by adding other frequencies to its earlier capacities in the 2300 MHz bands. In the spectrum auction concluded in March this year, it acquired vital assets in the 800 MHz and 1800 MHz bands, which raised its total equivalent spectrum footprint to 751.1 MHz, including uplink and downlink frequencies. This gives RJio a lead over other operators in terms of overall spectrum holding.

RJio’s greenfield operations, however, would present both an opportunity as well as a challenge. While it gives the operator an advantage working with a clean slate and doing a technological leapfrog, it also risks going through potential teething issues.

During the year, the RIL-backed operator also had to live with exits in its top management ranks, notable among which were those of its managing director Sandip Das in January followed by its president Sumit Chowdhury the next month. Nevertheless, it roped in former Den Network CEO SN Sharma as its subsidiary Reliance Jio Media applied for a pan-India MSO license. Another industry veteran Jagbir Singh, who was earlier with Airtel and most recently at Samsung, also joined RJio. Among other notable high-profile joinees earlier at RJio have been Blackberry’s erstwhile India head Sunil Dutt and Huawei India marketing director Anand Narang.

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