Reliance Jio in tower sharing pact with Ascend Telecom

In the process to expedite its 4G rollout launch in the country, Reliance Jio Infocomm has entered into a tower sharing agreement with Ascend Telecom Infrastructure.

As per the deal, Reliance Jio will share 4,500 towers of Ascend Telecom across India, the telecom unit of RIL said in a communiqué to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

It will help Jio to launch high speed data and voice services at a faster rate and at an affordable price. This deal is Jio's sixth tower sharing agreement as it has already tied up with Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, Viom Towers and ATC India for using their tower infrastructures.  

Last month, it signed a similar deal to share 8,400 of Tower Vision's towers.

Silk Route Growth Capital, IL&FS and the TVS Group hold stake in Ascend Telecom.

"It's our network coverage footprint that will give customers geographical freedom they need to avail out high-speed services," Sanjay Mashruwala, managing director at Reliance Jio, said in the statement.

Reliance Jio is likely to launch its fourth-generation voice and data services in the October-December quarter. For the rollout, it has its own 30,000 towers while plans to lease around 70,000 towers, including smaller cell sites on single poles.

The company has licenses for the 2300 MHz band since May 2010, but has not been able to launch the services yet. As per rules, it should roll out services by May 2015. Earlier this month, it also bought airwaves in the 1800 MHz band in a government auction.