Officials of Reliance Jio Infocomm claimed to have achieved broadband speeds on their networks that are 10-12 times faster than 3G services.
Funds raised by India Inc. through offshore loan syndication hit a 15-year high in 2023 with companies and banks raising $21.4 billion, the highest since 2007. The momentum is expected to continue in 2024 as well with over $4 billion fund raising expected in the first three months of this year. Companies raise funds, both onshore and offshore, depending on interest rates and activities. Funds raised offshore can be deployed in overseas activities.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Monday laid bare the succession plan at India's most valuable company, identifying twins children Akash and Isha for telecom and retail leadership, and youngest son Anant for new energy unit. He, however, insisted he isn't retiring yet and will "continue to provide hands-on leadership as before". At the annual shareholders' meeting of Reliance Industries Ltd, he said the robust architecture that he has announced will ensure the firm remains "a unit, well-integrated and secure institution even as it develops existing businesses and adds new growth engines."
Reliance Industries on Friday announced the sale of 2.32 per cent stake in its digital unit to US-based Vista Equity Partners for Rs 11,367 crore, the third deal in a little over two weeks that will inject a combined Rs 60,596.37 crore in the oil-to-telecom conglomerate to help it pare debt. The US-based private equity firm will buy a stake in Jio Platforms, which houses the country's youngest but biggest telecom firm Jio, at an equity value of Rs 4.91 crore and an enterprise value of Rs 5.16 crore.
Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) has written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) stating that a recent complaint against it by Bharti Airtel is a deliberate, malicious attempt at defaming RJIL's consumer-friendly tariff. RJIL has also asked the regulator to warn Airtel against 'making such frivolous complaints in the future'. The move is in response to Airtel recently requesting Trai to bring content aired through broadband under the regulatory fold and keep a check against discriminatory bundling tactics.
Indian Railways is in talks with Reliance Jio Infocomm to allow the Mukesh Ambani-led telecom major's use of its towers. The aim is seamless mobile and internet connectivity for passengers along the 67,368-km of tracks. The Railway Board has entrusted its RailTel Corporation arm to work on the modalities with Jio. The Jio tie-up is expected to bring down its telecom bill by at least 35 per cent from this financial year.
The company is offering its own devices under the brand name Lyf along with other brands to employees at a 25 per cent discount.
In what could be one of the largest launches in the telecom services space, Reliance Jio Infocomm is set to roll out its 4G LTE services in 800 Indian cities between April and June next year.
Reliance Industries, construction major L&T and IRB Infrastructure are some of the top companies that have used an infrastructure investment trust structure to reduce part of their debt and generate returns for their investors. Earlier this month, IRB Infrastructure InvIT was listed on the National Stock Exchange, giving its investors an option to exit by selling their units. The listing came within months of the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi's) guidelines for conversion of private unlisted InvITs into listed ones were issued.
The licensee will have to ensure that at least half the areas under rural telecom exchanges gets the required street level coverage.
'While investors in Reliance have had to play a game of patience for long stretches, for Anil the challenge is to do what used to be his brother's forte -- generating cash by putting assets in the ground and making things,' says T N Ninan.
Extending its new device plus data plan to more smartphones, the operator is keen to capture the youth's attention.
Supreme Court had asked the government to issue RCom a NoC for spectrum sale to Reliance Jio Infocomm by December 9 if it furnishes a corporate guarantee of Rs 1,400 crore
Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd on Friday tested its 4G network at the Techfest event in IIT Bombay campus by running trials of video calls and Jio television service, among others.
The uniform SUC, if implemented as per recommendations made by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, will provide relief for mobile operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, but will increase rates for broadband wireless access spectrum holders like RJIL.
Mobile operators with the exception of Reliance Jio are in a much worse financial condition than expected earlier. The combined borrowing of the four incumbent operators - Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) - reached an all-time high of Rs 3.85 trillion at the end of March this year. The companies' combined debt was up 22.4 per cent year-on-year last financial year against 8.3 per cent growth in their borrowing in the previous year. As a result, the incumbent operators' debt-equity ratio shot up to an unsustainably high level of 6.83X at the end of March this year from 2.3X at the end of March 2020. This was largely due to big losses reported by all these companies last financial year. The four incumbent operators racked up combined net losses of Rs 70,000 crore in FY21.
India's largest mobile operator Reliance Jio Infocomm will land the multi-terabit India-Asia-Xpress (IAX) undersea cable system in Hulhumale, Maldives, according to a statement on Monday. The high capacity and high-speed IAX system will connect Hulhumale directly with world's major internet hubs in India and Singapore. Jio's IAX project will land in the Maldives in collaboration with Ocean Connect Maldives, the statement said. The IAX system originates in Mumbai in the west and connects directly to Singapore, with branches including additional landings in India, Malaysia, and Thailand.
Also, the combination of a new entrant and new technology is not necessarily good.
Telecom major Jio will start the beta trial of 5G services in four cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Varanasi from October 5 with a select set of customers, the company said on Tuesday. The company will send invites to customers under 'Jio True 5G Welcome Offer' to try its 5G services and the subscribers will get Unlimited 5G data with up to 1 gigabit per second speed. "Post the successful demonstration of its True-5G services at the India Mobile Congress 2022, Jio is announcing the Beta trial of its True-5G services on the auspicious occasion of Dussehra, for Jio users in four cities - Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Varanasi," Jio said in the statement.
Reliance Jio Infocomm is the only company which had in 2010 won a pan-India spectrum for 4G services but is yet to start commercial services.
India's first auction of 5G spectrum, that powers ultra-high data speeds, is currently underway with a total of 72 GHz (gigahertz) of radiowaves worth at least Rs 4.3 lakh crore up for bidding. Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio, Sunil Mittal-led Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and a unit of billionaire Gautam Adani's flagship Adani Enterprises are in the race to bid for 5G spectrum, that offers speeds about 10 times faster than 4G, lag-free connectivity, and can enable billions of connected devices to share data in real-time. In addition to powering ultra-low latency connections, which allow downloading full-length high-quality video or movie to a mobile device in a matter of seconds (even in crowded areas), Fifth Generation or 5G would enable solutions such as e-health, connected vehicles, more-immersive augmented reality and metaverse experiences, life-saving use cases, and advanced mobile cloud gaming among others.
The Department of Telecom on Tuesday approved applications of telecom companies -- Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea and MTNL -- for conducting 5G trials but none of them will be using technologies of Chinese entities. The list of telecom gear makers approved for trials include Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, C-DOT and Reliance Jio's indigenously developed technologies.
Reliance Industries, which holds pan-India 4G telecom spectrum for data services, has applied for a licence to offer mobile telephony.
As part of its expansion plans, Jio has announced the roll-out of Internet of Things (IoT) services in association with Samsung, which will help consumers and enterprises.
RIL should wait-and-watch before investing in telecom sector.
Under the pact, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries' telecom arm will hire nationwide optical fibre network of Reliance Communications for rollout of 4G services.
Mukesh and Anil will announce two more infrastructure-sharing agreements by mid-June.
A number of investment banks in their research reports on Wednesday hailed the deal, saying it was strategic in nature for both cash-rich RIL and debt-laden RCOM.
The CAG report, tabled in Parliament, states the interest on the short payment stood at Rs 1,052.13 crore for the period up to March 2016.
Shares of the Anil Ambani-promoted firm ended 1.90 per cent higher at Rs 64.50 on the BSE. During the day, the stock had jumped 9 per cent to Rs 69.
No one is quite sure when the soft launch is likely.
The DoT has issued long-awaited migration guidelines which pave way for Internet service providers (ISP) like Reliance Jio Infocomm and Tikona, that have BWA spectrum, to offer mobile telephony service by paying an extra fee of Rs 1,658.57 crore (Rs 16.58 billion).
Jio Platforms is expected to use its 388 million mobile phone subscribers as the cornerstone of an e-commerce and digital services business to rival Amazon and Walmart's Flipkart.
The partnership will also see the two parties cooperate on technology initiatives, including development of affordable smartphones.
Bharti Airtel has paid Rs 11,374.7 cr while upfront amount due from it was Rs 7,832.20 cr
Anil Ambani on Wednesday announced formation of two new companies, Global Fuel Management Services and Reliance Communication Ventures Ltd, under the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Enterprises umbrella.
Jio's disruptive strategy, including free voice services and data at throwaway rates, apart from offering all services free for six months, triggered a consolidation in the telecom sector.
Reliance Jio accuses COAI of malafide intention.
The framework for new licences will be ready by end of this financial year.
The Cellular Operators Association of India said it would not take any legal step on the issue, unlike what it had said earlier.
