Bharti did hold its own against the might of Reliance Industries Ltd when the latter launched Reliance Infocomm in late 2002. Even then, Reliance’s entry into the mobile telephony space was controversial. The second was in 2002-03, when the government allowed companies with fixed telephony licences to offer mobile telephony services. This legalized the mobile telephony operations of Reliance Infocomm, which had started offering mobile services even before the change. The first of these changes again benefited Reliance Communications Ltd (as Reliance Infocomm was rechristened after its control passed to Anil Ambani) and Tata Teleservices.

Source: Mint September 25, 2016 17:37 UTC