Mukesh Ambani’s ambitious $20-billion Reliance Jio service is set to disrupt the telecom industry in the country. What Ambani terms as “Datagiri”, Reliance Jio will start giving 4G connections to consumers from Monday, September 5. The company will give all users free access to voice and data as a welcome offer for three months. After December, Jio customers will get all domestic voice calls, including roaming for free.
On Thursday, Ambani announced data plans starting from Rs. 149 per month (0.3GB data) to Rs. 4,999 per month( 75GB). “We have provided lowest 4G rates in the world,” Ambani said. There is also a Rs. 19 pack which gives 0.1GB. There is unlimited 4G access at night on a these plans. A special Student plan gives 25 per cent more data.
The company is offering offer a slew of services including streaming music, high-definition video streaming and digital money payments. Content worth Rs. 15,000 is being given free till December 2017. The company aims to get 100 million customers in the quickest period, Ambani told the Jio team.
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“Most incumbent networks have not built for data. They have had to retrofit to deal with data as an after thought,” Ambani said. “They are pushing unnatural act like a language translator. With Jio , digital mother tongue will be IP in natural form,” Hindu Business Line report quoted Ambani as saying.
Recently, RJio started giving connections to all those who were buying 4G enabled smartphones from specific vendors including Samsung, Intex and Videocon. As a result, RJio now has about 3 million users already on its network. These users have been availing the service for free.
The company has laid out over 2.5 lakh route kilometer of optical fibre. Incumbent operators have legacy networks comprising largely of traditional switching-based 2G network. Operators like Airtel, and Vodafone, however, been ramping up their 3G and 4G network over the last one year to counter any threat from RJio.
RJio’s entry is expected to bring back the good times for telecom consumers. Lack of new players had dried up all discounts and offers from incumbent operators.But now Airtel, Vodafone and Idea have already announced a slew of initiatives over the past few months as a pre-emptive move.