Mukesh Ambani may soon have a serious reason to worry, given Bharti and Vodafone’s recent business plans

If you thought Indian telecom operators are only concerned about 4G spectrum bidding as of now, then you are wrong. Besides 4G, WiFi market is next on the leading telecom operators’ minds. And three prominent brands, which are trying to outdo each other in the WiFi space are: Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Reliance.

Surprisingly, two anonymous sources told the Economic Times that Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India have created a new joint venture, Firefly Networks, to take on Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio, which is also finalising its strategy for the country's WiFi market.

The business daily further reported that Firefly Networks is currently looking to get maximum chunk of the WiFi deployments in NDMC areas of Delhi, besides targeting other state governments' WiFi plans, which have got traction due to Modi government's Digital India and Smart City initiatives.

For this venture, incumbent telcos have founded an independent company as a 50:50 joint venture, but Firefly’s business model hasn’t been finalized yet. In fact, Firefly is still working on modalities on how to fund the venture for expansion and with what proposition to go to the market.

Although Bharti Airtel and Vodafone India didn't respond to ET's query on the matter, the business daily reports that “Vodafone's senior vice-president Raj Sethia has joined as the full-time CEO of this new venture and is currently busy in further establishing its presence in the country. The venture's director board includes Vodafone India's CEO designate Sunil Sood and chief technology officer Vishant Vohra, Bharti Airtel's director, consumer business Srinivasan Gopalan, and director, network services group Abhay Savargaonkar.”

The venture has done some deployments in Delhi, which are yet to be launched commercially, including deployments in New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) areas such as Connaught Place and Khan Market. It will also be involved in Indus Towers' latest NDMC project, which will equip 3,000 street light poles in the entire NDMC area with 2G/3G/4G technologies spread across a span of three years, with an investment of Rs 220 crore.