Ericsson to build RIL Infotel Broadband's Wi-Fi

MUMBAI, INDIA: RIL (Reliance Industries Limited), India's largest private sector and the only company to have a pan India license for broadband services under the Reliance Infotel Broadband brand, today said that Ericsson AB will be building, developing and integrating Wi-Fi with its 4G network.

Under the deal Ericson will set up around 200 Wi-Fi hotspots and the 4G services would be rolled out in Delhi and Mumbai first in early 2013 and later will be made available to other Indian cities, according to industry sources.

The Wi-Fi hotspot enables provisioning of superior coverage besides offloading network traffic. Post the BelAir Network acquisition, Ericssion has gained edged in its carrier grade Wi-Fi portfolio as well as technical expertise and services to customers. The carrier grade Wi-Fi is considered better than traditional Wi-Fi.

RIL owns 95 per cent stake in Infotel Broadband. It paid around Rs. 4,800 crore to Infotel Broadband and also paid Rs. 12,848 crore to buy 20 MHz spectrum across 22 telecom circles.