Mukesh and Anil Ambani the billionaire brothers have decided to join hands to share the fiber-optic infrastructure with each other for the roll out of latest 4G services in India.  This is the first collaboration between the brothers after splitting of their companies 8 years back. As per the announcement made on Tuesday the telecom arm of RIL called Jio Infocomm, will share the fiber-optic infrastructure of Reliance Communications for an up-front payment of 1,200 crore. The move has been applauded by the analyst and industry experts as this they see as the first step towards the unity of Mukesh and Anil’s Reliance group. The stocks of Rcom went up by 11% whereas reliance Mediaworks, Reliance capital went up by marinal 4-5%. In the year 2010 Reliance industries acquired 95% stake in Infotel Broadband services which has the licenses for broadband wireless services in India.

 

As per the deal Reliance Jio Infocomm will get access to 120,000 kilometer fiber-optic network of Reliance Communications and also the tower owned by them this will greatly help in the optimized utilization of their infrastructure. Back in 2008 there was a possible merger between Reliance Communications with MTN Group in South Africa. But the deal ran into trouble due to the legal threats by Reliance industries as it claimed it had the right of first refusal. The roll-out of 4G services by reliance is going to shake up the telecom industry like never before. The 3G services rolled out in India couple of years back is still in the nascent stage and the coming of 4G services will be a significant step. Though it is difficult to predict how much it is going to benefit the customers but it will surely put in the likes of some developed country with 4G services running.