Reliance Jio on Sunday evening launched its 4G services at an event in Mumbai, but it will be available to only Reliance employees as of now. The public rollout is expected to begin in March-April 2016.
The launch had already been deferred twice, apparently because Mukesh Ambani was not happy with the service being offered. As of now, Reliance 4G's peak speed, as reported in field trials by Credit Suisse, is 70 Megabits per second (Mbps), which translates to downloading a 700 MB video file — the maximum amount of data that can be put on a CD — in 80 seconds.
However, other sources say the usual speed is in the 15-30 Mbps range, meaning the entire contents of a full CD can be downloaded in approximately 6 minutes and 15 seconds in the lower limit, and about 3 minutes and 6 seconds in the upper limit.
Interestingly, the Reliance Industries chairman has managed to rope in Shah Rukh Khan, the erstwhile brand ambassador of Bharti Airtel, to endorse his product. Airtel is one of the biggest competitors of Reliance in the 4G space, having heavily advertised the service over the past few months to capture a majority share of the market.
In a glittering event where performances by Shah Rukh Khan and internationally-acclaimed music composer were the highlights, no one missed the significance of the presence of Mukesh's brother Anil, his wife Tina and their two children.
A statement from RIL said: "By throwing open the Jio services to all its business partners, and its vast number of employees and their families spread all across India, RIL will be making the optimal use of human resources to ensure that the last and the slightest wrinkle would be smoothed out to perfection before Jio launches its all-India commercial services."
The launch also saw Reliance pushing its Lyf brand of phones with the connection.
