Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has always innovated in different sectors over the last three decades. The latest is their re-entry into India’s lucrative telecom sector. Reliance Jio has created so much hype in the country to change the country’s digital vision that at present the competition is actually with them, to deliver what they promised. The entire hope of the Indian audience for 4G Services (that would be responsible for some cutting edge services) lies with RJIL. Even though the company is quite secretive about their plans for the launch, the entire market is eagerly awaiting the release. In short, this can be explained as ‘pre launch customer acquisition‘.
As business plans go, they don’t come more difficult than Reliance’s Greenfield entry into the telecom sector. While starting from scratch, they are backed by the deep-pocketed RIL. They took a middle path – not totally asset light or not totally depending on passive infra providers. Reliance Jio is setting up own towers, laying own OFC network and establishing a submarine OFC network with global partnerships.
Voice Services:
It’s the worst kept secret in the Indian telecom Industry will launch voice services. Just look at the evidence at hand – they spent money to get licences, bagged tons of mobile numbers and was cleared for mobile number portability. And Indian market is yet to move on to data, major part of revenue is still coming from the voice.
Acquisition of Spectrum in 2G Auction:
As Reliance Jio participated in the ongoing 2G auction for 900 MHz and 1800 MHz band, and probably they are bidding fiercely to grab spectrum to leave no stone to offer voice services. 900MHz can also be using for HSPA900 or 3G services, but Reliance Jio is expected to skip 3G as they have LTE/4G. However 5MHz in 900MHz and 1800MHz band with 20MHz in 2300MHz band will help them for carrier aggregation to roll out LTE-Advanced in future. At present Jio is deploying LTE-TDD over 2300MHz band, but 1800MHz band can help them to roll out LTE-FDD services also. LTE1800 has a stronger ecosystem than any other LTE ecosystem. So Jio can have dual mode LTE networks also.
Reliance Jio participated and bid aggressively for spectrum during the recently concluded 2G Auction; particularly in the 900 MHz and 1800 MHz band. 900MHz can also be using for HSPA900 or 3G services, but Reliance Jio is expected to skip 3G as the target is LTE/4G. With this, Jio will definitely start a tariff war in the price sensitive 2G market.
Growing Further:
One of the best things the company has done is to create several android apps. Jio Play (live TV) and Video on Demand will drive the major change in user’s habit to optimize data growth. Jio showcased its own cloud service – Jio Drive. Jio Drive will enable customers to get their data from anywhere. There are more data hungry apps from them – Jio World, Health App, Jio Magazine etc. Jio also associated with several state governments or local city officials to offer them live security feed of the traffic and roads.
The Big Plan:
Reliance Jio is incredibly ambitious. They want to offer a bouquet of services and offer a plethora of choices. The customers are the ones who’d choose what they want from the offerings. As a result, this is expected to shake things up in the industry in 2014. With 2G spectrum in the bag and now looking at voice services, the launch which we hope will happen this year should be nothing short of spectacular.