Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio), owned by Indian Businessman, Mukesh Ambani has clearly stated that they won’t be affected by allegations charged against RCom owned by Mukesh’s brother, Anil Ambani but instead pointed out that he is a licensee and his spectrum exchange agreement still holds active.
Anshuman Thakur, the strategy head of Jio said, “RCom is still a licensed operator. They have not paid, but still, their license is active, and the DoT (Department of Telecommunications) is looking into the matter. The DoT has already sent a show cause notice for not paying the dues, but RCom is in a difficult situation where court cases are going to the Supreme Court and NCLAT (National Company Law Appellate Tribunal.”
The Department of Technology has issued a notice asking RCom to reveal the reasons for not paying Rs 21 Crore in spectrum dues. RCom, which is still under Rs. 46000 crore debt has also requested for another installment of Rs 281 Crore. Anshuman Thakur also mentioned that Jio was waiting for the outcome of all the different cases RCom is currently facing.
“Today they (RCom) are eligible to share the spectrum and use that network to service enterprise customers. If there are any sudden changes that we know because it’s between DoT and the courts.”, Thakur said. Jio also elaborated that they have enough spectrum to themselves across 850,1800 and 2300 MHz across all circles and even though they share the range with RCom waves in 850 MHz in 21 circles, it claims that they won’t be affected by RCom’s case outcome. Jio added that they have reasonably good, healthy spectrum and won’t be impacted. If it’s not enough Jio will easily buy more range.
RCom has also recently finalized an agreement to sell their 122.4 MHz spectrum in 850 MHz band to Jio at Rs 7300 Crore mainly due to the DoT’s refusal to approve this since Jio didn’t agree upon paying RCom’s historical fees.
