Reliance Info to spread wings to 295 more towns in Andhra

Reliance Infocomm, the largest mobile service provider in the country, plans to expand its network to 399 towns in Andhra Pradesh from the existing 104.

The 295 new towns will include places like Medikonduru, Muppala, Kesavapatnam and Thadimala where Reliance will be the lone mobile operator.

"This is our second phase of expansion, and we would like to subsequently cover the entire area of Andhra Pradesh in the near future," R Balachandran, CEO (Andhra Pradesh circle), Reliance Infocomm, said. He, however, refused to give any timeframe or investment figures for the proposed expansion.

"With this network expansion, Reliance will be able to cover 65 per cent of the state," Balachandran said.

"Out of the 295 Phase-II towns, 70 will be on the national highway route, 150 on the state highway and 85 on the railway route. Besides, 22 pilgrimage centres including Puttaparthi and Srisailam, and 18 tourist centres will also be covered," he added. The network has already been launched in 26 new towns, Balachandran said.

"Our optic fibre cable (OFC) covers an area of 2,300 km in Andhra Pradesh. With this expansion, we will be able to run 6,000 km of OFC across the state," he said.

"This expansion plan is a part of our nationwide plan that involves increasing our coverage from the present 1,100 towns to 5,100 towns in future," Balachandran said. Initially, Reliance Infocomm had planned to invest Rs 25,000 crore over five-six years across the country, he added.

Reliance Infocomm currently has over nine million customers across the country out of which eight lakh are in Andhra Pradesh. It plans to cross the one-million mark in Andhra Pradesh soon.

Reliance Infocomm has been in news recently for all the wrong reasons. Balachandran, however, refused to comment on whether the on-going tussle would have an impact on Reliance Infocomm's expansion plans.