Reliance Communications (RCOM) to Launch 4G in India, to Shut Down CDMA by End of 2016

More than 1 year back, I posted a story that will Reliance Communications shut down its CDMA business? The reason behind earlier forcast was Jio might buy out RCom's CDMA assets incl. spectrum and all.

However after nearly 16 months, now the situation is like this: 

1. Jio has 800 MHz spectrum in 10 circles.
2. Jio and RCom will share 800MHz band
3. RCom will merge with MTS - more 800MHz spectrum for LTE deployment by RCom as well as Jio as both share the spectrum.
4. RCom will merge with Aircel - RCom will have 10MHz 3G spectrum in several circles, as well as RCom will have more spectrum on 1800MHz band in all circles, which will eventually used for 4G.

In April this year DoT has approved 800MHz spectrum sharing between Jio and RCom (+ RTL) in 9 circles - Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh (East), Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orrisa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Assam and North East.

While merging with MTS India will give Rcom more spectrum on 800MHz band, and that will be sufficient for RCom to roll out LTE800. So in the mean while, RCOM starts 4G on 800MHz trials and keeps its CDMA users informed about its own upcoming 4G launch and will migrate its approx 5 million CDMA customers to 4G in due time (probably started from May, date is yet to be fixed).