The Indian telecom landscape in India is certainly set for a major overhaul in terms of competitive environment with India’s richest person Mukesh Ambani set to re-enter the telecom field through the BWA services route.

Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries (RIL) has acquired 95% stake in Infotel Broadband Services owned by the Nahatas. The investment is valued at Rs.4,800 crore and will be way of subscription to fresh equity capital at par to be issued by Infotel Broadband.

Post completion of the acquisition, Infotel Broadband will become a subsidiary of RIL.

The company aims to use the BWA spectrum to offer broadband speed mobile data services as well rich-media content.

“RIL’s initiative will usher in a wireless broadband revolution in both, the urban and

the rural areas all across the country by providing end-to-end data solutions for

business enterprises, social organizations, educational and healthcare institutions

and Indian consumers. This will give a fillip to rural upliftment by seamlessly

connecting information and markets to the rural population on a real-time basis and

will help bridge the rural-urban divide in terms of access to knowledge and

information,” said the company.

Commenting on the initiative, Mr. Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director

of Reliance Industries Limited said, “We see this as the next wave of value creation

opportunity in the wireless broadband space. We believe this will pole-vault India’s economy into the digital world at an accelerated pace while creating next generation tools that will enhance productivity and create world=class consumer experiences.”

Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications (RCom) which backed out off the BWA auctions in favour of Infotel announced that it too welcomes the entry of RIL in the Indian telecom field. "We welcome the entry of Reliance Industries into the high potential wireless broadband space. As leading telecom infrastructure and content service providers, we look forward to offering our services to RIL and other BWA players, even while we compete for customers in the marketplace through our choice of different technologies,” said a company statement from RCom.