Jio's next big disruption: Broadband plan to offer 100GB data at Rs 500
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio is nothing but trouble — for competitors, of course. For consumers, it is a blessing (at least sounds so with its freebies). After causing quite a stir in the telecom sector, especially in terms of data prices, the company is now shifting its focus towards the next stop: broadband internet. And there will be another price war.
Likely to be launched around Diwali, Reliance Jio’s JioFiber broadband service plans to offer data at rates that will definitely not go down well with the big players. According to a report in Economic Times, the company plans to offer 100GB data at just Rs 500, almost half of what competitors charge for data.
The Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) service was first mentioned by Ambani during the launch of Jio in September 2016. According to a report in India Today, Jio has been testing its Fiber service in Mumbai and will also be conducting trial runs of the service in Delhi-NCR, Ahmadabad, Surat, Chennai and Jamnagar. The company is in the process of rolling out the home broadband service to other cities in the country as well, but no names have been specified as of yet.
While competitors have pre-emptively decided to slash prices, Jio’s high-speed promises bundled with their data packages could be a massive dealmaker. Airtel on May 17 announced "larger bundles of data at existing prices" for its broadband subscribers.
The revised pricing in the Delhi circle will see the Rs 899 plan now offering 60GB high-speed data compared to the earlier 30GB, while the Rs 1,099 plan will now offer 90GB of data as opposed to the previous 50GB. Similarly, the Rs 1,299 plan now offers 125GB (earlier 75GB), the Rs 1,499 plan offers 160GB (100GB earlier), and the Rs 1,799 plan offers as much as 220GB of data. The company said in a statement that pricing in other sectors will also be on the same lines.
Even other broadband providers like ACT have started offering 1GB per second internet speeds in Hyderabad, with 1TB of data at Rs 5,999. ACT has also expanded operations to Delhi and is offering 100 Mbps speeds.
Jio's ace of spades, however, is not just the price, but the data speeds as well. According to an NDTV report, several users who were part of the test phase (the JioFiber Preview Offer) have tweeted about their experience with the service and the reviews sound promising. While a Mumbai user reported in January that speeds varied between 70 Mbps and 100 Mbps on the 1 Gbps connection, a Pune user, however, said that they received speeds of up to 743.28 Mbps on the same.
The JioFiber Preview Offer will provide its users with free high-speed internet for the first three months. The offer will come with a JioMedia share device, a smart set top box, routers and Power Line Communication devices, in a bid to promote additional Jio services. The broadband service prices are expected to start at Rs 500 for 100 GB data and for 1000 GB data at 100Mbps speed, and subscribers would be required to pay Rs 2,000 a month.
According to Rohan Dhamija, a partner and head for India and South Asia at Analysys Mason, JioFiber’s offer is “disruptive”.
“To that regard, powered by larger capacity on the supply side as well as innovative pricing, it would look to disrupt the fixed broadband business similar to its disruption of the mobile business,” he said.
Of course, the broadband market is not as big as mobile data. Home broadband is a small market, with less than 20 million wireline broadband users compared with 200 million users for wireless broadband. Even within that, Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL) accounts for more than half of it. That being said, the average user pays much more for fixed-line broadband.
But no matter how small, as long as there is a market worth exploring, you can be sure that Reliance Jio will disrupt things effectively.