Bharti Airtel towers over all

When the market opened for trading today, Bharti Infratel, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel, shot up to becoming the top gainer on the BSE. Currently it is at No.2. The stock is up 4% at Rs.185, with an intra day high at Rs.190.

The stock is in the limelight following the announcement made by the company yesterday – the company has formed a comprehensive telecom infrastructure sharing arrangement with Reliance Jio, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries, under which they will share infrastructure created by both parties. This will include optic fibre network – inter and intra city, submarine cable networks, towers and internet broadband services and other such opportunities identified in the future.

The arrangement could, in future, be extended to Roaming on 2G, 3G and 4G, and any other mutually benefiting areas relating to telecommunication, including but not limited to jointly laying optic fibre or other forms of infrastructure services. The pricing would be at ‘arm’s length’, based on the prevailing market rates. As part of this arrangement, Bharti and Reliance Jio have already announced an agreement under which Bharti has provided capacity on its i2i submarine cable to Reliance Jio.