Reliance Industries has already been taking the Indian Telecoms market by storm with its launch of Jio and the offers of free calls and cut-price data plans that have come along with it. Now it is planning on extending its services into the market of wired broadband services with the launch of JioGigaFiber, Reliance’s new fiber network, which promises its users faster broadband services.
Fiber optic broadband is the latest development in the field of broadband technology. The data is transferred via glass and plastic wires instead of the standard copper wires, which considerably adds to the speed of the transferred data. “India is ranked quite low at 134th in the global ranking for fixed broadband … Jio is determined to move India to among the top 5 in fixed-line broadband,” said Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani at the company’s 41st Annual General Meeting.
Since the launch of Jio in 2016, Reliance has acquired 215 million subscribers nationwide and is on the way to provide services to almost 99% of the country’s mobile data consumers. Inspite of its huge success, however, Jio still accounts for only a minor portion of the company’s revenue; 90% of which is accounted for by Reliance’s ventures in the oil-and-gas business. JioGigaFiber, expected to be rolled out in 1,100 cities to potentially connect 50 million homes, shall increase considerably Jio’s contribution to the total revenue earned by the company annually.
Registrations for JioGigaFiber’s fiber-to-home service shall begin from 15th August 2018, and the services provided by the same shall enable its consumers to use smart solutions such as real-time surveillance and connected devices. The JioGigaFiber launch has been construed as “a step in (the) right direction” by local brokerage Sharekhan, owned by BNP Paribas.
