RIL, RCom in talks for sharing telecom infrastructure

In a move that may bring the two Ambani brothers closer, Mukesh Ambani-led RIL is in talks to hire the infrastructure of younger sibling Anil's firm RCom for its telecom foray.

According to sources in the know, Anil Ambani-led RCom will be providing all infrastructure - towers, fibre, backhaul as well as its national and international long distance facilities-- to RIL's high-speed broadband services.

RCom has 50,000 towers, 2.77 KM optical fibre network and over 1 million retails outlets (including company-owned, franchisee and distributors).

This is supposed to be a pure business deal, sources said, adding that RIL is talking to 4-5

telecom infrastructure companies for towers and RCom happens to be one of them.

"Whosoever gives the best deal, we shall go ahead," sources in the Mukesh camp said.

According to market reports, Reliance Industries (RIL) is initially looking at about 30,000 towers. If this deal goes through, it will positively impact valuation of RCom's tower arm, for which the company is in talks with PE firms to sell the majority stake of 95 per cent.

According to sources, RCom might also provide wholesale voice services to RIL and the latter will bundle this with its broadband or 4G data offerings.

RIL has pan-India broadband wireless access spectrum for offering high-speed broandband services equivalent to 4G.