- JioFiber broadband service is scheduled to start Today across India, it comes with high-definition television and set-top boxes at no charge for the annual lifetime subscribers.
- The fiber-TV news came after Jio officially reached the No.1 spot in mobile operators category as free calls and cheap data brought million of subscribers and left rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Vodafone Idea Ltd. struggling after mounting debt.
Three years after entering the Indian telecommunication market with free calls and data and disrupting it, Mukesh Ambani is back with new things. Asia’s richest man is now giving TVs to hook users on movies and entertainment shows via the internet.
JioFiber broadband service is scheduled to start Today across India, it comes with high-definition television and set-top boxes at no charge for the annual lifetime subscribers. The offer by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., the tycoon’s wireless powerhouse also has subscriptions to most premium streaming services with prices as cheap as Rs. 700 per month.
The fiber-TV news came after Jio officially reached the No.1 spot in mobile operators category as free calls and cheap data brought million of subscribers and left rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Vodafone Idea Ltd. struggling after mounting debt. Airtel and Idea are also trying to bring in the customers by giving them access to TV and movie content.
Telecom operators across the world are adding entertainment to their offerings in order to compete for the users and add revenue, mostly in the markets which have achieved saturation in terms of mobile subscription. India has seen a huge growth in video-on-demand, according to Boston Consulting Group.
The market is predicted to leap to $5 billion by 2023 from $500 million last year, as estimated by BCG. This sudden boom has forced Bollywood production houses and streaming services to feed demand in order to compete for users.
Kapoor also said, “JioFiber which is being offered at less than one-tenth the global rates can also disrupt the streaming market if Jio produces its own content and signs up the best talent of the industry.”
