Reliance Jio has over 1.5 million users; uncertain for commercial launch

NEW DELHI: Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL), a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), said that it has over 1.5 million test users on its network but there was no announcement for commercial launch.

“Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (“RJIL”), a subsidiary of RIL, is rolling out a state-of-the-art pan India digital services business. In addition to fixed and wireless broadband connectivity offering superior voice and data services on an all-IP network, RJIL will also offer end-to-end solutions that address the entire value chain across various digital services in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, communication, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment,” said RIL in a statement, as part of its first quarter earnings announcement.

“RJIL aims to provide anytime, anywhere access to innovative and empowering digital content, applications and services, thereby propelling India into global leadership in digital economy. RJIL envisages to usher in the era of “visuality”, where video will replace voice as the new communication medium. RJIL will have one of the most comprehensive and powerful Video networks in the world,” it said.

RJIL aims to provide anytime, anywhere access to innovative and empowering digital content, applications and services, thereby propelling India into global leadership in digital economy. RJIL envisages tousher in the era of “visuality”, where video will replace voice as the new communication medium.

The company will have one of the most comprehensive and powerful Video networks in the world.

RJIL’s customer offering is built on four key strategic dimensions viz widest coverage of LTE services, substantially superior network quality, transformational data capacity and affordable services. RJIL’s deployment of LTE, FTTH and Wi-Fi will make high speed broadband access widely available to customers across India. This type of broadband access network offers high capacity, low latency services at an affordable price, a first for most Indian customers. RJIL will enable IP-centric and content focused services, with the ability to offer rich, multimedia communication and digital services.

RJIL is the first telecom operator to hold pan India Unified License. It has total liberalised spectrum holdings of 846.10 MHz, including 440.0 MHz in the 2300 MHz band (one block of 20 MHz in all 22 circles), 213.60 MHz in the 1800 MHz band (blocks ranging from 2x3 MHz to 2x10 MHz in 18 circles) and 192.50 MHz in the 800 MHz band (blocks ranging from 2x2.5 MHz to 2x5 MHz in all 22 circles, including spectrum acquired from Reliance Communications Limited (“RCOM”) across 13 circles). All of this spectrum is liberalised and can be used for rolling out any technology.

In addition, RJIL has entered into agreement with Reliance Communications (RCom) for sharing of spectrum in the 800 MHz band across 21 circles. Only RJIL is using sub-GHz spectrum band for LTE services in the country today. The combined spectrum footprint across frequency bands provides significant network capacity and deep in-building coverage for RJIL. RJIL is also creating a multi-terabit capacity international network.

During the quarter, RJIL extended its trial services to all LYF devices users under the Jio LYF Preview Offer. This has enabled testing of all the services to customers outside the initial set of test users. The feedback has been very encouraging. All the digital applications have also been tested extensively as part of this program.

RJIL now has over 1.5 million test users on its network. The average monthly consumption per user is in excess of 26 GB and is increasing rapidly. Average voice usage per month is over 355 minutes. The test program will be progressively upgraded into commercial operations in coming months.

RJIL has joined some of the leading global telecom operators like China Unicom, China Mobile, China Telecom, Singtel, T-Mobile US, Telefonica and Axiata Group for an initiative for a universal Rich Communications Services (RCS) profile worldwide. This global initiative will provide a common universal profile which will enable these mobile operators to deploy an interoperable RCS implementation with a core feature set and configuration.

RJIL was awarded for JioSon deployment and architecture in the HetNet Management software category while competing with leading operators across the world at the Small Cell Forum awards.

RJIL has retained its credit ratings of “AAA (SO)/ Stable” by CRISIL and “CARE AAA (SO)” by CARE for series PPD 1 and series PPD 2 and “CRISIL AAA/ Stable” by CRISIL and “ICRA AAA/ Stable” by ICRA Limited for all other series.