Reliance Comm plans expansion

Reliance Communications is planning to cover 1,054 new towns by installing 1,481 base transciever stations in this financial year.

Currently, the Reliance mobile network covers just 500 towns in UP and Uttaranchal through a network of 900 stations and a lot of towns and highways remain cut-off from the network due to an insufficient number of stations.

For probably the first time in mobile telecommunications in the country, the company will be installing satellite-based stations ("Telos") to provide mobile coverage in rural and difficult areas where laying out microwave or underground inter-connect cabling is not possible.

Pilgrims visiting the holy shrines of Badrinath and Kedarnath this month will find their Reliance mobiles functioning with a "talkably good" signal in these difficult terrains, which had been erstwhile referred to as "dark zones" in terms of mobile connectivity.

After becoming the largest CDMA-based mobile service provider in North India, Reliance Communications has now made extensive plans to increase its reach in Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal this year, which includes making the holy shrines of Badrinath and Kedarnath accessible on its mobile network.

Talking to Business Standard, Saleem Haq, circle head, UP (East) Telecom Circle Reliance Communications Ltd, said the company planned to increase its coverage to 581 towns this year and so far, it had already penetrated into 239 towns.

Providing an update on the current mobile coverage figures, in UP (West), Arvind Kumar, circle head, Reliance Communications, said that there were plans to increase the mobile coverage of Reliance to 474 towns and 261 towns had already been covered.

In Uttaranchal, he said, the company targeted to provide the most extensive mobile coverage by installing satellite-based stations to eliminate the need to install microwave or cable based links between distantly located stations and the company had already begun its services at the holy shrine of Badrinath while it was a matter of only a few weeks that the services shall be launched in Kedarnath. He said that the site had already been cleared by the DoT and other concerned departments and it was ready to begin transmitting signals & soon, with a formal inaugural, mobile services at the shrine shall be activated.