However RCom holds 262MHz of spectrum across 800/900/1800/2100MHz and Jio will take 122.4MHz spectrum, probably skipping 2100MHz/900MHz.
With this deal, Reliance Infocomm (later rebranded to Reliance Communications under the ownership of Anil Ambani) which was the brainchild of Mukesh Ambani, goes to the original parent. A circle is completed now.
The deal size is unknown but valuation could be Rs 24000 cr.
The deal also ends the speculation of RCom to continue to offer telecom services or not. RCom sells most of their Infratel assets and spectrum - that means RCom will exit from telecom sector from all kind of market - enterprise or retail.
JIO will enjoy RCom's spectrum - 50% of which are valid till 2025+ and can make better network with 850MHz LTE. Not only that Jio will leverage the extensive OFC network and towers of Reliance Infratel (though Jio and RCom are sharing their networks for some time)
Rajan Mathews, director of COAI, explains “It is good for the industry because the industry continues to consolidate around serious players who have deep pockets and financial wherewithal to play effectively and delivery value to customers in future,”
If you remind RCOM was once a very serious player, it won 3G spectrum in all three metro circles along with Airtel and Vodafone. Till 2012, Rcom was the 2nd biggest operator of the country, then slipped to 3rd by Vodafone, and now it holds less than 10% market share.
Because incumbents are charging little higher than Jio, but often adds more data benefit to the plans. So basically it's the same. Also in my personal experience Jio services are getting worsening and while Airtel is improving very fast. I don't know about Vodafone and Idea - may be they are waiting for merger to be completed and then only they will come aggressively.
No 2G Scam - all accused were acquitted by Special court.
Well I told earlier that 2G spectrum which was sold in 2007-08 was as per previous method - first come, first serve. But CAG calculated the loss with respect to 2010's 3G auction (first time TRAI went for auction method). The-then telecom minister A. Raja did a great job - the boom in Indian telecom brought a golden time - new operators, lowest tariff and many things - good for subscribers.
But there were definitely some money exchange between companies, middlemen and politicians. For eg RCOM (who was looking to diverge the CDMA business to GSM) plays a game by introducing DB Group (who later launched Cheers Mobile with Etisalat Group) and Tata Tele puts Unitech as their pawn. Ruias backed Loop Telecom also played some tricks.
Now as there is no 2G scam as it seems, I seriously waiting for legal letters to TRAI/DoT from some of the companies whose license was cancelled in February 2012 by Supreme Court. And yes STel promoter Shivasankaran already doing that, dragging DoT to court. It is heard that Videocon Teleocm and Loop Telecom are to follow the trend. Even Sistema, the promoter of MTS India is looking into it.
These operators may not return to sector, but they have good grounds to get compensation - but how? by cash or by giving away spectrum?
Payments Banks - They will not make much differences.
Frankly speaking payments banking concept will not be a popular one in India, atleast in urban areas due to ATM, apps based transaction, UPI enabled txn. And remote or village areas will not take the advantages of it. In rural areas people never heard of PayTM or Airtel's bank - here the small finance companies can do the job. And here Fino Payments Bank comes.
In urban areas people may create a bank account in PayTM or Airtel pBank, but the use will be limited.
And when DBS Bank is offering app based DigiBank offerings, I believe there is a very little hope for pBanks in long run. Well definitely the wallet companies may sustain the pBank business for their own requirements, but they are not to change the banking sector.
5G - target 2020-22!
Well thanks to JIO, we Indians got 4G/LTE at a time which is almost at par with global standards. Jio proved the fact that new technology if priced properly can reach mass scale and they can accept the new tech.
But from current 4G scenario in India, I don't think that 5G will come soon in India. Airtel is deploying VoLTE, Massive MIMO and Carrier Aggregation for upgradation of their LTE network. These will ultimately lead to 5G.
Whenever 5G comes to India, we will see 3G networks are shutting down in next 1-3 years by most of the carriers and they will refarm it for LTE deployments.
Vodafone - Idea to merge hopefully in 2018
Well I am not expecting anything aggressive from the merged entity. But I am waiting to see their LTE2500 to perform against Jio/Airtel's LTE2300.
But I expect to cut the expenditure they might be the first to shut down 3G, provided how fast they are expanding their LTE networks.
1 comment:
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