India’s telecommunication landscape has changed considerably over the last few years. New players coupled with faster and efficient services have resulted in the industry growing at a fast pace. Now, the entire market is excited about the launch of fourth generation or 4G services across the country. The company to have received a pan-India license for 4G services is Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL). The Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) owned company has some ambitious plans for its services. As such, being on the cusp of a revolution of sorts in the telecom sector, the dynamics of education, entertainment, financial services and healthcare businesses are sure to be altered in some way at least.
RJIL will launch its services in the coming months. Sources close to the company said that the Mukesh Ambani-owned company is planning a strategy that will leverage the use of advanced technologies to deliver high-speed data, combined with content and applications designed to appeal to individual and corporate customers. The picture is also strongly reminiscent of the so-called triple play (communication, information, entertainment) model Reliance Infocomm touted when it was launched by RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani before it went to his younger brother Anil Ambani under a family settlement and became Reliance Communications.
Expanding Beyond Domain Borders:
After acquiring the necessary spectrum, Reliance Jio planned solutions that would cater not just across the standard pre-existing telecom template in the country, but also across various digital domains of national interest such as education, healthcare, security, financial services, government citizen interfaces and entertainment. A big part of this strategy is television. The company plans to offer its subscribers access to 200 channels of which 160 will be HD. It will automatically store TV shows on these channels for seven days on the cloud, and subscribers can access and watch them—without having to record them.
Video is the next big thing in the Indian market and RJIL placing such a huge emphasis on the same and the entertainment industry as a whole is quite understandable. Data from GroupM, the digital agency part of WPP’s global behemoth suggests that the Indian consumer spent 19 billion minutes viewing videos online in October 2013 alone. As such viewing on mobile phones is also poised to increase exponentially over time. As a result, offering TV services on mobile makes perfect sense.
Healthcare & Education – India’s 21st Century Challenges:
Healthcare in India is a huge topic. Consulting firms, technology conglomerates and FMCG’s are all talking an active interest in what is one of India’s biggest challenges in the 21st Century. In this sector, RJIL is currently experimenting with various forms of telemedicine. This includes keeping a patient’s complete medical history stored in the cloud, accessible anywhere and at any time; providing subscribers with wearable devices that will upload necessary physiological data for viewing by a doctor; and video conferencing between doctors and patients. In education, the same person added, Reliance Jio will leverage its 38.5% stake in digital learning solutions company Extramarks Education, acquired in 2011, to provide textbook and other study material, including videos, for use by students and teachers.