RIL to take over 95% stakes in Infotel (India)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has entered into an agreement with Infotel Broadband Services (P) Ltd, owned by the son of Mahendra Nahata, managing director of Himachal Futuristic Communications Ltd (HFCL) to acquire a substantial stake in the latter, thus putting its interest firmly in the telecom space.
According to Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Industries Limited, RIL see this as the next wave of value creation opportunity in the wireless broadband space and he believes this will pole-vault India’s economy into the digital world at an accelerated pace while creating next generation tools that will enhance productivity and create world-class consumer experiences.
Rs 4,800 crore will be invested by RIL by way of subscription to fresh equity capital at par to be issued by Infotel Broadband. Post this investment. Infotel Broadband will be a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited which will own 95% of the equity. Infotel has emerged as a successful bidder in all the 22 circles of the auction for Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) Spectrum conducted by the DoT.
RIL plans to create world class state- of-the-art technology using an asset light strategy and its initiative will usher in a wireless broadband revolution in both urban and rural areas by providing end-to-end data solutions for business enterprises, social organisations, educational and healthcare institutions and Indian consumers.
9 applications for 3G & 11 for BWA auction received by Indian govt
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Eleven applications for the BWA spectrum auction along with nine applications for the upcoming 3G spectrum auction has been received by the Indian government.
Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Etisalat, Idea Cellular, Reliance Telecom, S Tel, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone Essar, and Videocon Telecommunications are included in the list of the bidders for 3G spectrum.
The list of applicants for BWA spectrum include Aircel, Augere, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Infotel Broadband Services, Qualcomm, Reliance WiMax, Spice Internet Service Provider, Tata Communications Internet Services, Tikona Digital Networks, and Vodafone Essar.
April 5 and 6 has been planned as the dates for mock auctions while on April 9, actual bidding process will take place. Two days after the completion of the 3G spectrum auction, auctions for BWA license will be conducted.
Record quarter for Reliance Com and Tata Indicom
Feeds writes…For the quarter of Dec-2006 Reliance Communications and Tata Indicom’s achieved a new milestone as their subscriber growth soared to record levels.
Reliance Communications now has 26.3 Million CDMA [includes WLL] mobile subscribers and 3.7 Million GSM mobile subscribers taking the tally to 30 Million. Tata Indicom which is focusing only on CDMA had a good quarter too. It’s mobile subscriber base now stands at 14.4 Million [includes WLL].
Their are two other CDMA service providers, HFCL Infotel and Shyam Telecom with negligible subscriber base. ~60K. GSM figures of other service providers are not available at the time this post was written.
