Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Jio Infocomm is gearing up for its launch by the end of this year. To make this launch smoother and faster, Reliance Jio Infocomm is striking deals for infrastructural benefits at a stupendous speed. The recent one is with Nimbuzz – the messaging platform on mobiles. This messaging platform of Nimbuzz helps to compile the phone book contacts of the mobile device with all other social media and email contacts to enable messaging on all these diverse platforms without any hindrances.
Vikas Saxena , CEO of Nimbuzz feels that this messaging platform has great potential and it can work incredibly well when gelled up with speed and 4G networks. He says, “The kind of speeds that I have seen on 4G demonstrations is fantastic. If only India allows us to launch voice over IP phone calls, Nimbuzz will be attaining new heights.” Reliance Jio Infocomm is planning to integrate Nimbuzz onto mobile devices which are separately formulated for its 4G services.
In the mobile advertising industry, the revenues have grown by 350 percent in the last year and it is expected to grow more in the upcoming years. If voice over IP telephony is allowed in India, Jio Infocomm will be able to offer voice telephony using VoIP and Nimbuzz can play an important role in designing the required apps. Jio Infocomm already has the license to offer voice telephony using VoIP, but some more clarity is needed as to how it will bundle voice telephony alongside its broadband internet access.
As per Saxena, “This deal is a win-win situation for both.” Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has also signed deals with other players to gear up the launch of first of its kind services in India. It has signed deal with Samsung to design 4G compatible mobile phones that are priced at a medium range. To use the existing infrastructure, Reliance has also partnered with Reliance Communications to use the latter’s fibre optic cable network spread across the country. It will also use its mobile towers for the initial time phase. To reach out to International borders, a deal with Bharti Airtel has also been signed to use its submarine cable network. However, these deals will be useful until Reliance comes up with its own indigenous network. According to Mukesh Ambani, initial investment on infrastructure demanded more time and effort which was delaying the launch of the services.
Reliance Jio Infocomm will be first soft launched in metros like Delhi, Mumbai and Banglore. After this initial phase, Reliance plans to cover the whole country by the end of 2015 with its fourth generation services.