Pan-Indian 4G license holder Reliance Jio Infocomm has signed an an agreement to make use of Bharti Infratel's tower assets.
Reliance Jio has agreed to pay market rates to gain access to Infratel's portfolio of 82,000 telecom towers for its mobile rollout.
Infratel's sister company Bharti Airtel signed an agreement to share towers, fiber and other network assets with Reliance Jio in December.
In a statement, Reliance Jio managing director Sanjay Mashruwala said the Infratel deal is in line with this earlier arrangement, and is “aimed at avoiding duplication of infrastructure, wherever possible, [and facilitating] the faster roll out of our services across the country.”
Infratel operates about 35,000 mobile towers, and has a 42% stake in the joint venture Indus Towers, which has 47,000 of its own.
Besides its Bharti deals, Reliance Jio also has tower sharing and fiber sharing deals in place with Reliance Communications.
The Indian government last year granted Reliance Jio approval to offer voice as well as data services over its 1800-MHz and 2300-MHz spectrum.