Tag: Reliance Jio

Decongestion: Jio hails Airtel’s fair practice

MUMBAI: Reliance Jio has welcomed Airtel’s decision to provide moreB points of interconnection in line with fair business practices and Trai regulations. Bharti Airtel Limited has indicated its decision in its press statement.

RJIL has been writing regularly to Airtel and other incumbent operators regarding its requirement for interconnection capacity over the last few months. Necessary details have been provided to Airtel from time to time, highlighting the urgency of the requirement and the impact on Quality of Service parameters. However, no action was taken over the last several weeks, resulting in non-compliance of Trai regulation on quality of service which mandates that POI congestion should not affect more than one call in every 200 calls made.

The situation deteriorated significantly in the last few weeks, with over 75 calls failing out of every 100 call attempts. In last 10 days alone, over 22 crore calls on the Airtel network failed, while 52 crore calls failed cumulatively on the networks of the three incumbent operators viz. Airtel, Vodafone India Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd.

While RJIL has rolled out a state-of-the-art network, the benefits of superior voice technology have been denied to Indian customers due to the POI congestion. Indian customers have not been able to enjoy RJIL’s free voice offer as a result of such anti-competitive behaviour of incumbent operators.

RJIL has been raising the issue of insufficient POIs as anti-competitive aimed at hindering the entry of a new operator. Such hurdles result in poor experience for RJIL customers who are trying to make calls to incumbent operators’ networks. “We have repeatedly appealed to the incumbent operators to create a fair and reciprocal framework of coopetition that is good for India and Indian customers,” RJIL stated.

On the unsubstantiated apprehension regarding asymmetric voice traffic raised by Airtel, RJIL clarified that the voice traffic on its network is in line with industry trends and as expected for any new operator. When a new operator begins its operations, its customer base is understandably low and a large proportion of these are new numbers that are not yet in the address book with whom they communicate. Therefore, in the early days of operations of any new operator, there are more outgoing calls than incoming calls. Over time, as the customer base grows, this asymmetry reduces and the traffic becomes symmetric.

RJIL’s outgoing traffic is less than two calls per customer per hour even during peak traffic period, which requires only a reasonable number of POIs. These calls are not to one operator but distributed over all the operators. Incumbent operators are describing such a modest call rate as a Tsunami of traffic from RJIL.

Moreover, asymmetry of traffic has absolutely nothing to do with the number of POIs required, which is based on the total traffic in both directions and not just in one direction. The equipment required for POI are two-way trunks, which means that the same equipment is used for both directions. No additional equipment is needed for handling the calls coming from RJIL to the other operator. It is therefore in customer interest to have adequate interconnection capacity irrespective of direction of traffic.

RJIL hoped that Airtel as well as other incumbent operators would enhance the PoIs sufficient to meet their license obligation of QoS with immediate effect and maintain these parameters on an ongoing basis.

September 14, 2016
How will Jio’s launch impact the digital ecosystem?

MUMBAI: Jio’s launch last week has caused a stir in the telecommunications industry. Calls and messages on the new network are free while mobile data is 3 to 5 times cheaper compared to competitors. For Jio as a disruptor this is a reasonable strategy: Silicon Valley’s leading VC Peter Thiel has said that “[start-ups] have to be 10 times better than second best”.

But in addition to rattling up the stock market, Jio’s strategy is likely to have a longer and beneficial impact on India’s digital ecosystem.

Jio has thrown a glove to other mobile operators by slashing service costs for consumers. While Jio’s offering is only available to LTE customers, that is not relevant: consumers on 2G or 3G will ask their carrier, why do they need to pay 3x to 5x more for slower internet speeds? This is likely to create a pricing war between India’s mobile operators. Such price wars have been commonplace across the world, latest example being Singapore just a few months ago.

As prices go down, more people will switch on their mobile data services for the first time. GSMA Intelligence estimates only 15% of people in India used mobile broadband in Q4 2015, while smartphone ownership would allow much higher rates already today. Cheaper data increases the share of smartphone users who use mobile data but also incentivizes feature phone owners to upgrade to a smartphone as the main benefit (online access) becomes affordable.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this would accelerate the progress of digital democracy or the vision of digital India by breaking the perception barrier among the bottom of the pyramid. “Data is for everybody” would be the new mantra.

This will also spur the growth of affordable 4G devices and a multi-SIM environment; further reducing the customer loyalty towards the network. Customers will keep on switching for better price or data bandwidth.

This in turn helps the digital ecosystem grow. While India’s own services like Ditto TV, Hooq and Gaana are already present in the market, a majority of global digital merchants do not have India in their sights yet. Beside few smartphone owners and lack of access to online payment methods, low mobile data penetration has been one of the key roadblocks.

Globally, average Netflix users watch 133 hours of video per month which translates into roughly 133 gigabytes (GB) of data consumed. The average Spotify user listens to 28 hours of music (34-35 GB data) per month. In Western markets a large portion of this content is consumed through landline internet, so such data volumes are not an issue. But for a mobile-first market like India, they have so far made such digital services inaccessible to a large part of the population.

Reduced cost of data will then result in a bigger uptake of digital content services as users can consume more for less. Local providers will be able to increase their audience while international merchants like Netflix, Spotify, Apple and Amazon are going to reconsider their strategy for India in light of the changing ecosystem.

With the challenges of mobile data considerably reduced, all other factors point to growth and make India one of the most attractive markets for global merchants.

Another consequence of the data revolution is voice over IP services like Skype, Viber, and others will get more acceptance in the eco-system from the telecom operators; while this will create more opportunities for them we can see many home-grown companies ready to challenge their hegemonies. Obviously, for customers the more means the merrier.

While the pricing war will create a temporary setback for carriers, in the long run everyone will benefit. Consumers get affordable internet and access to more digital content. Carriers will be able to increase user stickiness (by negotiating and offering exclusive deals and co-promotions with digital service providers) and average revenue per user (from both increased data consumption and from providing carrier billing for these services).

(The author is the general manager of Fortumo India Mobile Payments. The views expressed are entirely his own and Indiantelevision.com does not subscribe to them)

September 5, 2016
How will Jio’s launch impact the digital ecosystem?

MUMBAI: Jio’s launch last week has caused a stir in the telecommunications industry. Calls and messages on the new network are free while mobile data is 3 to 5 times cheaper compared to competitors. For Jio as a disruptor this is a reasonable strategy: Silicon Valley’s leading VC Peter Thiel has said that “[start-ups] have to be 10 times better than second best”.

But in addition to rattling up the stock market, Jio’s strategy is likely to have a longer and beneficial impact on India’s digital ecosystem.

Jio has thrown a glove to other mobile operators by slashing service costs for consumers. While Jio’s offering is only available to LTE customers, that is not relevant: consumers on 2G or 3G will ask their carrier, why do they need to pay 3x to 5x more for slower internet speeds? This is likely to create a pricing war between India’s mobile operators. Such price wars have been commonplace across the world, latest example being Singapore just a few months ago.

As prices go down, more people will switch on their mobile data services for the first time. GSMA Intelligence estimates only 15% of people in India used mobile broadband in Q4 2015, while smartphone ownership would allow much higher rates already today. Cheaper data increases the share of smartphone users who use mobile data but also incentivizes feature phone owners to upgrade to a smartphone as the main benefit (online access) becomes affordable.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this would accelerate the progress of digital democracy or the vision of digital India by breaking the perception barrier among the bottom of the pyramid. “Data is for everybody” would be the new mantra.

This will also spur the growth of affordable 4G devices and a multi-SIM environment; further reducing the customer loyalty towards the network. Customers will keep on switching for better price or data bandwidth.

This in turn helps the digital ecosystem grow. While India’s own services like Ditto TV, Hooq and Gaana are already present in the market, a majority of global digital merchants do not have India in their sights yet. Beside few smartphone owners and lack of access to online payment methods, low mobile data penetration has been one of the key roadblocks.

Globally, average Netflix users watch 133 hours of video per month which translates into roughly 133 gigabytes (GB) of data consumed. The average Spotify user listens to 28 hours of music (34-35 GB data) per month. In Western markets a large portion of this content is consumed through landline internet, so such data volumes are not an issue. But for a mobile-first market like India, they have so far made such digital services inaccessible to a large part of the population.

Reduced cost of data will then result in a bigger uptake of digital content services as users can consume more for less. Local providers will be able to increase their audience while international merchants like Netflix, Spotify, Apple and Amazon are going to reconsider their strategy for India in light of the changing ecosystem.

With the challenges of mobile data considerably reduced, all other factors point to growth and make India one of the most attractive markets for global merchants.

Another consequence of the data revolution is voice over IP services like Skype, Viber, and others will get more acceptance in the eco-system from the telecom operators; while this will create more opportunities for them we can see many home-grown companies ready to challenge their hegemonies. Obviously, for customers the more means the merrier.

While the pricing war will create a temporary setback for carriers, in the long run everyone will benefit. Consumers get affordable internet and access to more digital content. Carriers will be able to increase user stickiness (by negotiating and offering exclusive deals and co-promotions with digital service providers) and average revenue per user (from both increased data consumption and from providing carrier billing for these services).

(The author is the general manager of Fortumo India Mobile Payments. The views expressed are entirely his own and Indiantelevision.com does not subscribe to them)

September 5, 2016
Ambani’s disruptive digital India Jio “datagiri” gameplan

MUMBAI: The Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries Ltd on 1 September unveiled ‘datagiri’ (dominace via data services) coupled with disruptive marketing tactics in classic Reliance style — all dedicated to Prime Minister Modi’s Digital India dream.

And while Ambani enumerated the many features of Reliance Jio service, the group’s telecoms and value-added services company, for about 45 minutes in a speech at RIL’s AGM here, there was mayhem on the stock markets. Crores of rupees were wiped off in fortunes as share prices of incumbent telcos tumbled. An analysis by a business news paper estimated that many listed telecoms companies, including younger brother Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications, lost over Rs 11,0000 crore on the markets.

While the stock markets were witnessing a bloodbath, Ambani told his shareholders, “In the journey of time, there comes a few life changing movements. Our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s inspiring vision of a “Digital India” is one such movement. Jio is dedicated to realizing our Prime Minister’s vision for 1.2 billion Indians. Jio will give the `power of data’ to each Indian to fulfill every dream and to collectively take India to global digital leadership.”

Sample some facts: free voice call for Jio customers; data at almost 1/10the the price of those prevailing now; no roaming charges; one million Wi-Fi hotspots around the country by middle of next year; 100 per cent VolTe network that allows simultaneous usage of voice and data services; all customers to get freebies of voice calls, data usage and video streaming totally free 5 September to 31 December, 2016; a 4G network coverage of 18,000 cities and towns & and over 200,000 villages; student discount of 25% on data usage and a promised investment of about US$ 14 billion in the Reliance Jio ecosystem.

“The Jio ecosystem stands tall on five fundamental pillars (of) best quality broadband network with the highest capacity; a world of affordable 4G smartphones and wireless IP devices; compelling applications and content; superior digital service experiences and affordable and simple tariffs,” Ambani said, sending the Indian telecoms consumers, reeling under indifferent services provided by the present from incumbents, into a tizzy and queuing up for a Reliance Jio connection that has plans to cover 90 per cent of India’s population y March 2017.

Jio’s suite looks compelling. Apart from a state-of-the-art pan-India digital services business and fixed and wireless broadband connectivity offering superior voice and data services on an all-IP network, Jio will also offer end-to-end solutions that address the entire value chain across various digital services in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, communication, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment.

According to reports, the company filed its tariff plans with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 1 September 2016.

Reliance Retail Ltd, another subsidiary of RIL, has introduced a slew of affordable 4G LTE smart-phones under the LYF brand, starting at Rs. 2,999. More feature-rich models will be available at progressively higher price-points like Rs. 3,999, Rs. 4999 and so on. The company has also tied up with smart-phone makers like LG, Samsung and Micromax to bundle Jio SIM and other free services.

If all these were not enough, Ambani announced setting-up of the a venture capital fund, where Jio will work on creating Jio Digital Entrepreneurship Hubs in key cities and towns of India. The Jio Digital India Start- up Fund has set aside Rs. 5,000 crore to be invested over the next five years.

“In this era, if you are not digital, and if you don’t have globally competitive digital tools and skills, you simply will not survive. You will get disrupted. You will be outcompeted. You will be left behind. You will become irrelevant. India and Indians cannot afford to be left behind. Today, India is ranked 155th in the world for mobile broadband Internet access, out of 230 countries,” Ambani elaborated, adding that Jio services are aimed at bringing India at par with developed telecoms market.

If things work out as planned, then India’s broadcast ecosystem can start seeing an even great shift in consumption of video on mobile handsets, smart TVs, and on on-the-go devices.

“Clearly, the data plans could lead to a price war in the segment with others being forced to follow suit,” says an industry observer. “All this is good for the consumer as prices will only head further south and the more they do, the more video will be consumed digitally. Which is fabulous for the OTT ecosystem that is currently being nurtured by independents and the broadcast majors.”

Jio Welcome Offer

The Jio ‘Welcome Offer’ provides an opportunity to every Indian to learn, try, customise and experience high quality digital services, without paying for the services up to 31 December, 2016 after which the applicable tariffs will apply.

The company also proposes to use this time period to fine-tune its services and resolving interconnection issues with incumbent players.

“In the last month alone, Jio customers suffered over 5 crore (50 million) call failures to other networks because of insufficient interconnect capacity,” Ambani said hinting at the all-out war being played out with incumbents accusing Reliance of not playing fair— an allegation tossed back by Reliance to competitors. “The onus is rightly on the incumbent operators not to misuse their market power by creating unfair hurdles,” Ambani reiterated.

Jio may extend the period of free services in case Jio subscribers are not able to get adequate experience of seamless connectivity across the network due to point of inter-connect congestion, mobile number portability restrictions and if the quality of service parameters are not as per the benchmarked by desired by company management.

Existing `invited’ or test users of Jio, who enrolled for the Jio Preview Offer, will be transitioned to the Jio Welcome Offer.

Tariff Plans

The Company filed detailed tariff plans with TRAI. Ambani enumerated the following principles used for formulating the tariff plans:

i)       Benefits of technology would be passed onto customers. All domestic voice calls for Jio customers will be absolutely free, across India and at any time. Domestic roaming charges will not apply in Jio tariffs.

ii)      Data tariffs have been made highly affordable, with full transparency, without any associated conditions. The company is offering the lowest LTE data rates in the world. Additionally, it would offer unlimited night time LTE data.

iii)      The Jio-Apps bouquet, which is worth Rs. 15,000 for an annual subscription, will be available complimentary for all active Jio customers up to 31 December 2017. This has been done to make digital life available to everyone.

iv) A special student discount offer, with 25% more data on the main tariff plans, would be offered to all students.

v) Jio has introduced a simple tariff structure with only 10 main plans, designed to fit every budget, as against the 22,000 tariff plans prevailing in the country today.

These are summarised here:

Industry Reactions

An official statement from British telecoms giant Vodafone India said, “We have always offered great value to our customers, backed by excellent customer service, a nationwide presence, and Vodafone SuperNet, our best network ever. We will continue to do so for our hundreds of million customers across the country.”

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), an apex body of telcos in India, which had gone public over differences with member Reliance Jio taking the war of words to the Prime Minister’s Office, welcomed the announcements.

“Reliance Jio is a valued member of the COAI. We wish to congratulate them on the announcement of the launch of their services. As a valuable member of the association, we welcome them with great warmth and applaud the bold vision of Mukesh Ambani and the innovation he proposes to bring to the industry,” Director General COAI Rajan S. Mathews said in a statement.

“We welcome Reliance Jio’s entry to the digital world and wish them the very best. We also welcome Jio’s call to leading operators to work together. As a responsible operator, we will fulfill all our regulatory obligations as we have always done,” Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom operator in terms of subscribers, said in a statement, adding,”Over the last 20 years, Airtel has been contributing towards building a digitally enabled India and remains fully committed to and take leadership in supporting the government’s Digital India vision. We will continue to innovate and deliver best-in-class products and services to our customers.”

Content aggregators and OTT players were also quick to hail Jio’s game plan. Zee Entertainment Enterprises MD and CEO Punit Goenka tweeted: “Mukesh Ambani’s #datagiri opens up a new chapter for the telecom industry and for the consumers! The data plans launched, which are cheapest across the world, are indeed a boon for content creators and consumers!”

Viacom 18 Group CEO Sudhanshu Vats said in a tweet that Reliance Jio is truly changing the face of India’s telecom sector. “This is #digitalrevolution!” he added. Viacom18 is a joint venture between Viacom Inc and RIL-controlled Network18 group that operates several news and entertainment TV channels, including Colors and Colors Infinity, apart from other media properties.

As many years back Reliance Telecommunications, part of an unified RIL under Dhirubhai Ambani, had created disruptions in the nascent Indian telecoms market, over a decade later his elder son, Mukesh, is replaying the disruption saga, albeit more digitally. Déjà vu indeed!

September 2, 2016
Ambani’s disruptive digital India Jio “datagiri” gameplan

MUMBAI: The Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries Ltd on 1 September unveiled ‘datagiri’ (dominace via data services) coupled with disruptive marketing tactics in classic Reliance style — all dedicated to Prime Minister Modi’s Digital India dream.

And while Ambani enumerated the many features of Reliance Jio service, the group’s telecoms and value-added services company, for about 45 minutes in a speech at RIL’s AGM here, there was mayhem on the stock markets. Crores of rupees were wiped off in fortunes as share prices of incumbent telcos tumbled. An analysis by a business news paper estimated that many listed telecoms companies, including younger brother Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications, lost over Rs 11,0000 crore on the markets.

While the stock markets were witnessing a bloodbath, Ambani told his shareholders, “In the journey of time, there comes a few life changing movements. Our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s inspiring vision of a “Digital India” is one such movement. Jio is dedicated to realizing our Prime Minister’s vision for 1.2 billion Indians. Jio will give the `power of data’ to each Indian to fulfill every dream and to collectively take India to global digital leadership.”

Sample some facts: free voice call for Jio customers; data at almost 1/10the the price of those prevailing now; no roaming charges; one million Wi-Fi hotspots around the country by middle of next year; 100 per cent VolTe network that allows simultaneous usage of voice and data services; all customers to get freebies of voice calls, data usage and video streaming totally free 5 September to 31 December, 2016; a 4G network coverage of 18,000 cities and towns & and over 200,000 villages; student discount of 25% on data usage and a promised investment of about US$ 14 billion in the Reliance Jio ecosystem.

“The Jio ecosystem stands tall on five fundamental pillars (of) best quality broadband network with the highest capacity; a world of affordable 4G smartphones and wireless IP devices; compelling applications and content; superior digital service experiences and affordable and simple tariffs,” Ambani said, sending the Indian telecoms consumers, reeling under indifferent services provided by the present from incumbents, into a tizzy and queuing up for a Reliance Jio connection that has plans to cover 90 per cent of India’s population y March 2017.

Jio’s suite looks compelling. Apart from a state-of-the-art pan-India digital services business and fixed and wireless broadband connectivity offering superior voice and data services on an all-IP network, Jio will also offer end-to-end solutions that address the entire value chain across various digital services in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, communication, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment.

According to reports, the company filed its tariff plans with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 1 September 2016.

Reliance Retail Ltd, another subsidiary of RIL, has introduced a slew of affordable 4G LTE smart-phones under the LYF brand, starting at Rs. 2,999. More feature-rich models will be available at progressively higher price-points like Rs. 3,999, Rs. 4999 and so on. The company has also tied up with smart-phone makers like LG, Samsung and Micromax to bundle Jio SIM and other free services.

If all these were not enough, Ambani announced setting-up of the a venture capital fund, where Jio will work on creating Jio Digital Entrepreneurship Hubs in key cities and towns of India. The Jio Digital India Start- up Fund has set aside Rs. 5,000 crore to be invested over the next five years.

“In this era, if you are not digital, and if you don’t have globally competitive digital tools and skills, you simply will not survive. You will get disrupted. You will be outcompeted. You will be left behind. You will become irrelevant. India and Indians cannot afford to be left behind. Today, India is ranked 155th in the world for mobile broadband Internet access, out of 230 countries,” Ambani elaborated, adding that Jio services are aimed at bringing India at par with developed telecoms market.

If things work out as planned, then India’s broadcast ecosystem can start seeing an even great shift in consumption of video on mobile handsets, smart TVs, and on on-the-go devices.

“Clearly, the data plans could lead to a price war in the segment with others being forced to follow suit,” says an industry observer. “All this is good for the consumer as prices will only head further south and the more they do, the more video will be consumed digitally. Which is fabulous for the OTT ecosystem that is currently being nurtured by independents and the broadcast majors.”

Jio Welcome Offer

The Jio ‘Welcome Offer’ provides an opportunity to every Indian to learn, try, customise and experience high quality digital services, without paying for the services up to 31 December, 2016 after which the applicable tariffs will apply.

The company also proposes to use this time period to fine-tune its services and resolving interconnection issues with incumbent players.

“In the last month alone, Jio customers suffered over 5 crore (50 million) call failures to other networks because of insufficient interconnect capacity,” Ambani said hinting at the all-out war being played out with incumbents accusing Reliance of not playing fair— an allegation tossed back by Reliance to competitors. “The onus is rightly on the incumbent operators not to misuse their market power by creating unfair hurdles,” Ambani reiterated.

Jio may extend the period of free services in case Jio subscribers are not able to get adequate experience of seamless connectivity across the network due to point of inter-connect congestion, mobile number portability restrictions and if the quality of service parameters are not as per the benchmarked by desired by company management.

Existing `invited’ or test users of Jio, who enrolled for the Jio Preview Offer, will be transitioned to the Jio Welcome Offer.

Tariff Plans

The Company filed detailed tariff plans with TRAI. Ambani enumerated the following principles used for formulating the tariff plans:

i)       Benefits of technology would be passed onto customers. All domestic voice calls for Jio customers will be absolutely free, across India and at any time. Domestic roaming charges will not apply in Jio tariffs.

ii)      Data tariffs have been made highly affordable, with full transparency, without any associated conditions. The company is offering the lowest LTE data rates in the world. Additionally, it would offer unlimited night time LTE data.

iii)      The Jio-Apps bouquet, which is worth Rs. 15,000 for an annual subscription, will be available complimentary for all active Jio customers up to 31 December 2017. This has been done to make digital life available to everyone.

iv) A special student discount offer, with 25% more data on the main tariff plans, would be offered to all students.

v) Jio has introduced a simple tariff structure with only 10 main plans, designed to fit every budget, as against the 22,000 tariff plans prevailing in the country today.

These are summarised here:

Industry Reactions

An official statement from British telecoms giant Vodafone India said, “We have always offered great value to our customers, backed by excellent customer service, a nationwide presence, and Vodafone SuperNet, our best network ever. We will continue to do so for our hundreds of million customers across the country.”

Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), an apex body of telcos in India, which had gone public over differences with member Reliance Jio taking the war of words to the Prime Minister’s Office, welcomed the announcements.

“Reliance Jio is a valued member of the COAI. We wish to congratulate them on the announcement of the launch of their services. As a valuable member of the association, we welcome them with great warmth and applaud the bold vision of Mukesh Ambani and the innovation he proposes to bring to the industry,” Director General COAI Rajan S. Mathews said in a statement.

“We welcome Reliance Jio’s entry to the digital world and wish them the very best. We also welcome Jio’s call to leading operators to work together. As a responsible operator, we will fulfill all our regulatory obligations as we have always done,” Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom operator in terms of subscribers, said in a statement, adding,”Over the last 20 years, Airtel has been contributing towards building a digitally enabled India and remains fully committed to and take leadership in supporting the government’s Digital India vision. We will continue to innovate and deliver best-in-class products and services to our customers.”

Content aggregators and OTT players were also quick to hail Jio’s game plan. Zee Entertainment Enterprises MD and CEO Punit Goenka tweeted: “Mukesh Ambani’s #datagiri opens up a new chapter for the telecom industry and for the consumers! The data plans launched, which are cheapest across the world, are indeed a boon for content creators and consumers!”

Viacom 18 Group CEO Sudhanshu Vats said in a tweet that Reliance Jio is truly changing the face of India’s telecom sector. “This is #digitalrevolution!” he added. Viacom18 is a joint venture between Viacom Inc and RIL-controlled Network18 group that operates several news and entertainment TV channels, including Colors and Colors Infinity, apart from other media properties.

As many years back Reliance Telecommunications, part of an unified RIL under Dhirubhai Ambani, had created disruptions in the nascent Indian telecoms market, over a decade later his elder son, Mukesh, is replaying the disruption saga, albeit more digitally. Déjà vu indeed!

September 2, 2016
Intex Partners with Reliance Jio

MUMBAI: Intex technologies has announced its partnership with Reliance Jio to make 4G accessible to the ever growing base of digital consumers. With this collaboration, Intex consumers will be able to access an exclusive preview of the Reliance Jio 4G services for a period of 90 days, absolutely free. Under the terms of the Jio Preview Offer, consumers who purchase Intex 4G smartphones will get a Reliance Jio 4G SIM with complementary access to unlimited HD Voice & Video calling, unlimited SMS, unlimited High-Speed Data services, and access to Jio Apps.

Commenting on the partnership, Gurbinder Sodhi, Head LFR and Operator business, Intex Technologies, said, “Intex Technologies has led from the front in democratizing smartphones in India by making them accessible to consumers across the country. With the advent of the 4G revolution, Intex has one of the largest 4G portfolio of devices with compelling features and great prices. Through this partnership with Reliance Jio, we aim to bring to our consumers a truly differentiated 4G experience.”

September 1, 2016
Intex Partners with Reliance Jio

MUMBAI: Intex technologies has announced its partnership with Reliance Jio to make 4G accessible to the ever growing base of digital consumers. With this collaboration, Intex consumers will be able to access an exclusive preview of the Reliance Jio 4G services for a period of 90 days, absolutely free. Under the terms of the Jio Preview Offer, consumers who purchase Intex 4G smartphones will get a Reliance Jio 4G SIM with complementary access to unlimited HD Voice & Video calling, unlimited SMS, unlimited High-Speed Data services, and access to Jio Apps.

Commenting on the partnership, Gurbinder Sodhi, Head LFR and Operator business, Intex Technologies, said, “Intex Technologies has led from the front in democratizing smartphones in India by making them accessible to consumers across the country. With the advent of the 4G revolution, Intex has one of the largest 4G portfolio of devices with compelling features and great prices. Through this partnership with Reliance Jio, we aim to bring to our consumers a truly differentiated 4G experience.”

September 1, 2016
Reliance Jio to offer 1GBps broadband service to homes

MUMBAI: While Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani was outlining Jio’s wireless 4G LTE network plans and tariffs at its 39th AGM, he also announced that Reliance Jio was starting in select cities a fibre to the home (FTTH) wired line network with the possibility of offering bandwidths upto 1 GBps to residential users.

“This initiative will push the power of data even further,” he said. “We will progressively extend this to the top 100 cities.”

The wired line broadband network is to be extended to even enterprises which would allow companies to have multi- gigabyte connectivity. “These will be on par with what is available in the developed world for all our enterprise customers,” Ambani said.

The company was also in the process of tying up with some of the world’s iconic digital and internet players in order to bring to Indian customers the “full power and range of their offerings.”

For the past few months, a select bunch of high networth individuals in the south of Mumbai have already been experiencing the FTTH service.

Industry observers expect Jio to disrupt pricing in the FTTH segment too, similar to what it is doing in mobile communications.

September 1, 2016
Reliance Jio to offer 1GBps broadband service to homes

MUMBAI: While Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani was outlining Jio’s wireless 4G LTE network plans and tariffs at its 39th AGM, he also announced that Reliance Jio was starting in select cities a fibre to the home (FTTH) wired line network with the possibility of offering bandwidths upto 1 GBps to residential users.

“This initiative will push the power of data even further,” he said. “We will progressively extend this to the top 100 cities.”

The wired line broadband network is to be extended to even enterprises which would allow companies to have multi- gigabyte connectivity. “These will be on par with what is available in the developed world for all our enterprise customers,” Ambani said.

The company was also in the process of tying up with some of the world’s iconic digital and internet players in order to bring to Indian customers the “full power and range of their offerings.”

For the past few months, a select bunch of high networth individuals in the south of Mumbai have already been experiencing the FTTH service.

Industry observers expect Jio to disrupt pricing in the FTTH segment too, similar to what it is doing in mobile communications.

September 1, 2016
RIL AGM to be streamed live from 11 am onwards 1 Sept

MUMBAI: A lot is expected to be revealed about Reliance Jio progress and rollout plans during the course of Reliance Industries Ltd’s 42 annual general meeting with its shareholders on 1 September.

Punters are betting that its tariffs will be disclosed as well as the plans it has VoLTE, IPTV and broadband.
RIL has reportedly spent over Rs 29,000 crore over Jio and is expected to invest more. And while the profits are not expected to start rolling out during its investment and growth phase, RIL would still like to know what chairman Mukesh Ambani has in store. As Jio is expected to revolutionise the way Indians consume data and engage on their mobiles.

Keeping this in mind, RIL has decided to stream the AGM live on its various online digital channels from 11 am when Mukesh Ambani is slated to begin his speech.

YouTube

o   Flame Of Truth channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/flameoftruth2014)

o   Jio Digital Life channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuXlQvucItKHNH4b0ega0DA)

·        Facebook

o   Reliance Industries Limited (https://www.facebook.com/RelianceIndustriesLimited/)

o   Jio (https://www.facebook.com/Jio/)

·        Twitter

o   @FlameOfTruth (https://twitter.com/flameoftruth)

o   @RelianceJio (https://twitter.com/reliancejio)

·        Jio Chat

·        Jio Play

September 1, 2016