RCom awaiting spectrum allocation for national GSM roll-out

Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group firm 'Reliance Communications' is awaiting allocation of spectrum from the government for national roll-out of its GSM service, a company official said today.

The company had already applied for additional spectrum allocation to the government, Reliance Communications president (Personal Business), S P Shukla, told reporters here.

Reliance GSM service was being currently available in eastern India under the 'Smart' brand name. It is the first GSM mobile service operator in eastern India.

Shukla said at present, Reliance GSM service was spread across 2000 towns in eastern India, which would go up to 9000.

RCom operates both GSM and CDMA mobile services, with a total subscriber base of 32 million. With a subscriber-base of eight lakh, the growth rate in GSM connections was 10 per cent to 12 per cent during the last fiscal.

Shukla said RCom would invest around US$ 2.5 billion to expand its wireless network, both in CDMA and GSM. The likely investment for the GSM expansion would be about Rs 3000 crore.

The basic infrastructure would be common for both CDMA and GSM services, Shukla said.

On a national basis, RCom plans to be present in 22,000 towns across the country from the present levels of 10,000, in both CDMA and GSM.