Strong signals: Railways in talks with Reliance Jio on tower use

Indian Railways is in talks with Reliance Jio Infocomm to allow the Mukesh Ambani-led telecom major’s use of its towers. The aim is seamless mobile and internet connectivity for passengers along the 67,368-km of tracks.

The Railway Board has entrusted its RailTel Corporation arm to work on the modalities  with Jio. The railways has around 900 towers across the country — a little over 500 under the traditional microwave system and 300-400 for  mobile radio communication.

Jio got, with effect from January 1, 2019, the contract for the corporate account of IR, which has around 195,000 connections. The national transporter