Reliance Communication, Aircel and Tata Teleservices have joined hands to sign a Tripartite agreement that will help all of them offer 3G services Pan India. They are currently the fourth, sixth and seventh largest telecom providers in India. Reliance has 117 million, Aircel has 69 million and Tata has 63 million subscribers as of February 2014.
The three-way agreement is a very well thought out move. Reliance has spectrum licenses in 13 circles primarily covering Northern, central and North Eastern states. Aircel too has spectrum licenses in 13 circles covering most southern and north-eastern states. On the other hand, Tata Docomo has strong presence in western and central India and have 9 licenses. With three of them joining hands, they will be able to provide internet services through-out the country.
RCom’s Chief Executive Officer for Consumer Business, Gurdeep Singh, said in regards to the agreement, “We are delighted to be the first operator (apart from Govt operator BSNL/MTNL) to offer 3G national roaming to our customers in partnership with other telecom firms having state-of-the-art 3G networks. These alliances will further consolidate RCom’s position as the leading data operator in the country and will help the Company improve its post-paid and Corporate customer market share,”.
Existing Spectrum Licenses of RCOM, Tata and Aircel
If you see the chart above, you can clearly see that all 3 operators are going to benefit from each other’s circles. Aircel and Tata Teleservices now get access to most expensive premium circles of Mumbai and Delhi where Reliance has 3G spectrum and services.
On the other hand RCOM gets access to Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu (including Chennai), Kerala and UP East Where Aircel has 3G spectrum licenses. And from Tata Docomo they get access to Maharashtra and Goa, Gujarat, Haryana and UP west.
Overall, this tripartite agreement is sure bring smiles on nearly 250 million existing customers of these 3 operators and will also help them expand their user base to places where they were unable to provide 3G service!