Reliance Jio disrupted the telecom industry and it has its eyes set on the broadband market. Speaking at the company's recent Annual General Meeting, Mukesh Ambani announced registrations for Jio GigaFiber FTTH broadband will commence on August 15 and locations that receive the highest interest would be the first to get the service.
The official announcement did not reveal several details about Jio GigaFiber, such as its commercial availability, pricing and what the service would offer as a whole. We know that Jio GigFiber will most likely offer high-speed FTTH broadband at 100Mbps speeds, but a recent report by ET tries to fill in some missing pieces to the puzzle.
If the report is to be believed, Reliance Jio will heavily disrupt the broadband space as well as take a jibe at the cable providers. Here are the top reasons why switching to Reliance Jio GigaFiber is a wise choice.
Price
The key success factor for broadband providers in India has been competitive pricing. ACT's growth is largely credited to its affordable pricing and generous data limit. But Reliance Jio's entry will challenge all the existing broadband players in India with pricing like no other provider offers.
As per ET report, Jio GigaFiber plans will start at Rs 500 a month, which is 50 percent lower than the current standards – Rs 700-Rs 1,000 a month for 100GB data at 100Mbps and Rs 250-Rs 300 for TV services per household.
If you thought 4G is now cheaper, Jio GigaFiber's entry into the market would mean a further 25-30 percent reduction in broadband as compared to 4G.
"There can be very limited cannibalisation even if Jio prices fixed broadband (with bundled internet TV services) at 30% below 4G mobile broadband rates as the two data products are very different – one meant for the home user and the other for the person on-the move. Also, the quality of video streaming in a fibre-based home broadband scenario would be far more reliable and consistent than 4G mobile broadband," Naveen Kulkarni, telecom analyst at PhillipCapital, said in a statement.
More than broadband
Reliance Jio is not limiting itself to providing FTTH broadband. Reports have already established that GigaFiber service will be bundled with Jio GigaTV service, which would offer internet-based digital content services and access to its suite of MyJio apps.
Jio's set-top-box is said to support video calling from TVs and voice-support in the GigaTV remote. We had the chance to take a look at Jio's GigaTV setup earlier this year, which tells us many things. For instance, Jio set-top-box can connect to any HDMI TV and convert it into a smart TV. There was integrated Play Store and Jio Store to download apps in addition to the pre-loaded Netflix, YouTube, Voot and others. Jio set-top-box will support 4K, external hard drive up to 2TB, Google Assistant and Hello Jio, and gaming with an additional joystick.
But the FTTH broadband and GigaTV are just the tip of an iceberg. We expect Jio to foray into IoT Hub and home automation as well, which will break the barriers to a whole new concept Indian consumers are currently unfamiliar with. Stay tuned for updates.
