Reliance Jio Infocomm - Updates in September-October-November 2014

Last month was pretty busy for Reliance Jio, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries.

New Appointments:

• Anupama Ahluwalia joined R-Jio as senior vice president. Earlier she was VP-Marketing at Coca Cola (India & South West Asia).
• Former Deutsche Telekom executive Rainer Deutschmann joined as new Chief Products and Innovation officer at Jio. He will take care of formulating the venture’s go to market strategy while overseeing various key software, content and mobile Internet elements of the venture.
• Mukesh Ambani's twins - Akash & Isha Ambani are appointed in the board of directors of Reliance Jio, as approved by RIL's board of directors. They are also in the group's retail business' board of directors. Akash Ambani has been closely involved in the development of products & digital services applications in Reliance Jio.

• Sanjay Jog has become Chief Human Resources at Reliance Jio Infocomm after Steve Correa left. Mr. Jog was HR Chief at Reliance Retail since begining of 2012, when he was moved from Aditya Birla Group's Pantaloons.

Merger of Telecom Subsidiaries:

Reliance Industries is going to merge its three telecom subsidiaries - Jio Infocomm, distance communications service provider Infotel Telecom & technical R&D arm Rancore Technologies. Jio is waiting for DoT's approval for merger. 

Overseas Loan: 

Jio takes a $750 million loan from Korea Exim Bank for 12 years in the end of September this year. $440 million will be directly from Exim, and rest will be from a global consortium of other banks.

$1.5 Billion Raise from Consortium of 26 Global Banks

Jio plans to raise $ 1.5 billion from 26 global banks to refinance the loans they took in 2010. Of which $ 1 billion comes with 5.5 years of maturity and $500 million for 7 years maturity. 

The consortium includes Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Societe Generale SA, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Limited, Singapore Branch, Land Bank of Taiwan, Singapore Branch, Mega International Commercial Bank Co., Ltd., Offshore Banking Branch, Bank of Taiwan, Singapore Branch, CTBC Bank Co., Ltd. Singapore, The Iyo Bank, Ltd. and The Hyakujushi Bank, Ltd.

Ericsson Cracked Jio's OSS Deal: 

Ericsson inked a deal worth $10 million with Jio, as reported by Economics Times. Under this deal Swedish gear maker will provide & manage Jio's operations support systems (OSS) for 3 years. There is yet to be any official announcement. 

Jio Appeals for Better Backhaul Spectrum:

Jio was allotted few microwave spectrum in 13 & 18 GHz band for backhaul purpose. But Jio finds that this microwave backhaul is not suitable for rural areas, moreover climatic interference is more on this band. So Jio writes to DoT to request for two MWB frequency carriers of 28 MHz paired bandwidth each in the 22 service areas in the 6 and 7 GHz spectrum band for point-to-point microwave backhaul links.

Received 1800MHz Spectrum

Jio has received spectrum of 1800MHz band which they have won in February auction. It's not sure they received all of it or partially. In some reports they got spectrum in 9 circles out of 14 circles they acquired. 

Ready for Network Tested, Applied to DoT

Reliance Jio has written to Department of Telecom as the company wants to get permission to start their network testing using 4G technology. The test includes legal interception and monitoring by security agencies which is mandatory before rolling out commercial services.

Recruit Spree: Another 3000 to Join in Retail & Distribution

Jio is gearing up for commercial roll out and hence it requires manpower - Jio is to recruit 3,000 people in its retail and distribution. Note that Jio is not looking into telecom minds, rather for retail and distribution.