- Reliance Jio GigaFiber to offer broadband, landline and TV combo for ₹600.
- Landline and TV will be added to Reliance Jio GigaFiber over the next three months.
- While the landline will come with unlimited calling facility, television channels will be delivered over the internet.
Currently, Reliance Jio is pilot testing Gigafiber in New Delhi and Mumbai, providing 100 gigabytes (GB) of data at 100 Mbps for free, except for the ₹4,500 one-time deposit for a router. “In addition, telephone and television service will be added in next three months, and all three services will remain free for 1 year for its all customers when the service will commercially roll out”, said a source on condition of anonymity.
The service of landline comes with unlimited calling facility and the tv channels will be delivered over the internet (internet protocol television). All their services will come through an ONT(optical network terminal). It is a box type router which can connect 40-45 devices like smart TV, mobiles, laptops, tablets, etc. The source said that the services, in addition, include gaming, closed-circuit television, and smart home systems.
The triple services combo offer provides 600 channels with seven days catch up option, landline and 100 Mbps broadband—will be priced ₹600 a month. The additional tariff for adding other smart home services may charge extra. With superfast speeds of at least 100 Mbps, going up to 1 gigabyte per second (Gbps), Jio GigaFiber will also enable storing CCTV surveillance footage and other data on the cloud, making it accessible across devices.
In the last annual general meeting of Reliance Jio’s parent Reliance Industries Ltd in July, Chairman Mukesh Ambani had announced that GigaFiber will be the largest greenfield fixed-line broadband rollout globally, with an introduction in 1,100 cities across India in one go. Last week while announcing March quarter earnings, Reliance said in a statement that the service is now being rolled out across 1,600 cities.
The commercial launch of Jio GigaFiber could disrupt the wired broadband market in the same way Reliance Jio disrupted the wireless market in September 2016. Bharti Airtel Ltd says it will focus on its premium customers and expand its broadband service across India’s top 100 cities, instead of copying Reliance Jio’s ambitious plan to create a fiber-optic network across India.
Data from Telecom regulator showed that as of February end, there were just 18.29 million wired broadband users as against 531.54 million mobile broadband subscribers.
In October, Reliance is going to buy majority stakes in Den Networks Ltd and Hathway Cable and Datacom Ltd for ₹5,230 crore—a move that will boost Jio GigaFiber. With these investments, Reliance Jio had said in October last year, it plans to boost 27,000 local cable operators that are aligned with Den and Hathway through superior back-end infrastructure, tie-ups with content producers, and investment in digital infrastructure for connecting customers.
Registrations for Jio Gigafiber started in August last year.
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