India's Reliance Jio Infocomm has been awarded a unified telecom license, becoming the first operator to receive pan-India approval to offer both wireless voice and data services.
The company's new license allows it to offer all telecom services apart from global personal communication by satellite services in each of the nation's 22 telecom circles, parent company Reliance Industries has announced.
The license agreement was signed with India's Department of Telecom last week and Reliance Jio paid a one-time entry fee of around 16.7 billion rupees ($272.2 million.)
Reliance Jio is the only Indian operator with wireless broadband licenses in all of India's 22 telecom circles. The operator paid some $2.7 billion for nationwide 2.3-GHz spectrum during the $8 billion broadband wireless access (BWA) auction in 2010, and is using it to roll out a 4G network.
But until now, the company's licenses did not allow it to offer voice services.
The government had reportedly approved the issue of a unified license to Reliance Jio earlier this month. With bank guarantees included, the operator will pay a total of around $317.5 million for the privilege.