Reliance Jio Infocomm is in advance talks with automobile companies to launch an automobile telematics device that will control vehicle's movement and alert the owner about fuel and battery condition through a mobile app.
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"Reliance Jio is ready with a car-connected device that will have multiple features like immobilising car at the time of theft, alert the owner about car movement, locate the car and also provide wi-fi within the car. The owner needs to use Jio sim in the device to avail benefits," an industry source told PTI.
With the help of Jio's car management device, the vehicle owner will get information about how his driver is handling the car. Additionally, the movement of the vehicle can be restricted within a particular geography, the device can switch on AC of the car from any remote location and get an alert of car break etc.
The telecom venture led by Mukesh Ambani is also working on the modalities on its sales model for the existing cars as well, the source said.
"There are lots of factors that determine price, but the price of the car-connected device is estimated to be either equal to or less than its Jio's mifi device which costs around Rs 2,000," the source said.
The application has been internally developed by Jio. However, the hardware device will initially be imported from China but the company has asked its vendor to start making it in India later.
At the same time, Jio is also scaling up its fibre to the home project for which it is running a pilot scheme in certain cities, including Delhi and Mumbai. "With Fibre to the home, Jio will focus on automatic entire home from entertainment to home surveillance to utility management," the source said.
Last week, the newest telco in the Indian telecom sector said it reached a customer base 7.24 crore and claimed that soon it would be adding 1 lakh mobile subscribers per day. Ambani has set a target to cross 10 crore customers for Jio by March 31, 2017.
Meanwhile, the operator is reportedly working out a new tariff plan that will be valid till June 30 and would provide data services at a nominal Rs 100, combined with free voice calls, for another three months. The Jio introductory offer ends on March 31.
