Mumbai: Reliance Industries' telecom arm will increase its staff strength by nearly three-fold this year to 10,000 as it gears up to launch fourth generation (4G) services.

Company Chairman Mukesh Ambani, however, did not give any timeframe for the launch of services and said he would give more details only in next AGM about the product and the launch.

"Hopefully, next year same time I will be able to give more information about the product and the launch," RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said while addressing company shareholders.

The company has so far invested about Rs 18,000 crore in the telecom business, mostly for acquiring spectrum.

"From less than 700 professionals a year back...the Reliance Jio team has grown rapidly to a national footprint of over 3,000 professionals today. And we estimate that over the next year we will grow the team further to a national strength of nearly 10,000 professionals," Ambani said.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom arm of RIL, has also finalized the key vendor and supplier partnerships that are required for the initial launch of our services, he added.

"Together with our partners, we have charted an ambitious plan for the next 12 months, and we at Reliance Jio foresee making rapid progress over this period towards launching our services across India," Ambani said.

Stressing on his optimism about the digital services market, Ambani said, "Let me assure sceptics that my continued optimism is based on the significant strides that we at Reliance have taken in the past year - towards engineering and testing a world-class broadband network and developing a suite of compelling and synergistic digital services."

In the coming years, Reliance Jio's next-generation digital infrastructure and services platform will catalyse a transformation and embrace almost every facet of India's economic growth and social progress, Ambani added.

"Our vision for India is that broadband and digital services will no longer be a luxury item - a scarce commodity - to be rationed amongst the privileged few," he said.

He said Reliance Jio will build scale based on technological superiority and affordability and provide an unparalleled range of services that do not exist today.

Reliance Jio, formerly Infotel Broadband, holds pan-India wireless broadband spectrum which it acquired through auction in 2010. RIL later acquired Infotel Broadband and renamed it as Reliance Jio Infocomm.

Reliance Jio has already signed a multi-million dollar deal with Anil Ambani's Reliance Communications, where the younger brother will share fiber-optic network to help rolling out 4G services.
The agreement will allow Reliance Jio to use younger brother Anil's countrywide network to start the fourth-generation broadband service.

Reliance Jio has also announced to invest Rs 3,000 crore in West Bengal to roll out 4G wireless broadband services in the state by March, 2014.

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