Reliance Industries in talks with global players to launch hi-speed broadband

MUMBAI: Reliance Industries ( RIL) is in the process of finalising agreements with global technology players and service providers to offer high speed broadband wireless services in the country, the company said today.

"...Is in the process of setting up a world class broadband wireless network using state-of-art technologies and finalising the arrangement with leading global technology players, service providers and infrastructure providers, application developers, device manufacturers and others to help usher the 4G revolution into India," RIL said in a statement while announcing the second quarter results.

Last year, Mukesh Ambani-led RIL had forayed into the telecom arena with a bang, announcing the acquisition of Infotel, which had emerged as the sole winner of pan-India broadband spectrum, for Rs 4,800 crore.

"Reliance also made a substantial commitment to being a leader in the evolution of India's digital economy by acquiring control of a nationwide broadband wireless access licence. We are fully geared to participate in India's growth and continued global recovery in the coming years," Ambani said.

In June this year, Ambani had said that the services would be in the domain of education, healthcare, entertainment, financial services and government-citizen interfaces.

Reliance Industries had a cash and cash equivalent of Rs 42,393 crore (USD 9.5 billion) for the year ended March 31, 2011.

Broadband and broadband-enabled digital services are the next big leap forward in the digital transformation of our knowledge economy, he had said.