This isn’t what we could call a “pure” mobile news, but it’s definitely related as the end result is creation of Asia’s largest “triple-play” (digital TV, broadband and voice telephony) operator. Reliance Communications (Rcom), which is India’s second-largest mobile operator, is acquiring the country’s biggest cable TV provider Digicable. Rcom’s idea is to merge its Internet TV and broadband services with Digicable to create a new company, Reliance DigiCom, that starts with a combined subscriber base of 11 million homes.
Reliance Communications’ chairman, Anil Abmani, said in a statement: “Reliance Communications led the telecom revolution in India by growing its subscriber base to over 100 million customers in a short span of just five years. The digital TV and broadband space is poised for similar explosive growth in the years ahead. With this game-changing move, we hope to lead the next revolution in digital home entertainment in India by offering a world-class TV experience and ultra high-speed broadband capability to a billion people… The new company will fuel our 4-screen strategy to own mobile, cinema, television and computer screens that are rapidly becoming an integral part of our customers’ daily lives.”
According to analysts, the new company will aggressively market cable broadband, exploiting a market that is still very small in India, due to fragmentation of the cable industry.
The deal comes after Rcom agreed to sell its tower assets to Indian telecom infrastructure company GTL Infrastructure…
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]