RIL Acquisition of Infotel: A gamechanger

RIL has acquired Infotel which is the only player with Broadband Wireless License across India.
This can be a game changer simply for the reason, that wireless is the way forward.
Quoting the ET:
The company is expected to use data technology in its roll out that would take around eight months after receiving spectrum. “A single 20 MHz TDD spectrum when used with LTE (Long Term Evolution) has the potential of providing greater capacity when compared to existing communication infrastructure in the country,” RIL said in a statement.

LTE is a technology patented by Qualcomm, like CDMA for cellular telephony which is what Reliance chose when it started services under Mukesh Ambani. Reliance Communications has since launched parallel services in GSM.

End of quote.

There are cost benefit. RIL controls more spectrum than any other operator and has acquired this at the 1/5th the price other paid for 3G.
Why is this spectrum cheap?
This is because no voice ca be carried over the spectrum of BWA. Already there are people talking about IP based telephony domestically which will further reduction in voice charges for end user.

There are no doubts in my mind over the following:
1. At the appropriate time, government policy will be tweaked to allow voice services by BWA players.
2. The future is wireless and corporate data usage will be a big revenue generator
3. RIL Telecom operations would be spun off as a subsidiary once it attains critical mass.

Other than Bharti, RIL now also becomes a buy due to its Telecom foray.

RIL now has oil and gas plus telecom. Try and visualize life without oil and gas and telecom.