Reliance Communications is planning a major expansion and also plans to start new operations in cities like Delhi and Mumbai with a total investment of around Rs.2,500 crore.

Out of the total cost, around Rs.1,500 crore will be spent for its GSM-based services in its eight operations spread across the country. The company will add between 10-12 million GSM lines, of which a significant portion will be spent on purchasing equipment. 

The new mechanism will be installed in Assam, West Bengal, Orissa, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh to cater to higher number of users. Reliance Telecom is in talks with five major telecom equipment vendors, including Motorola, Nokia, ZTE among others, for this order.

The company plans to invest around Rs.1,000-1,200 crore for the Mumbai and Delhi circles.

Reliance Communications has already moved the department of telecom (DoT), seeking allocation of 4.4 Mhz spectrum in the 1800 Mhz frequency band. It recently approached the DoT's wireless planning and coordination (WPC) wing for operating a GSM service in Mumbai and Delhi. Under the unified access service license for telecom, companies can use either GSM or CDMA or a mix of this and other technologies like CorDECT to offer services.

Recently Bharti Airtel had also sought CDMA spectrum some time back to use in its existing five fixed line operations in states like Madhya Pradesh and Haryana.

Also see:

Five bids for BSNL's 45.5m line GSM tender (13-Jun-06)