The 2017 agenda: Reliance Jio to soon venture into DTH, broadband services

Reliance Jio stormed into the telecom industry with the launch of ultra-affordable high speed 4G internet services combined with free voice calls, SMS and Jio apps. To keep the momentum going, Reliance JioInfocomm is reportedly gearing up to expand the company’s product portfolio by venturing into diverse areas such as broadband services and Direct-to-Home (DTH) TV services.

Reliance Industries plans to spend a further Rs 18,000 crore additional investment required for its fibre network as it expands Jio’s 4G reach, reports Business Standard. The Reliance Jiofibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband services has already been offering trials at a few locations and the services will expand to more cities soon.

Based on the information posted by users on social media networks, the Reliance Jio FTTH broadband services offers speed ranging from 70 Megabits per second (Mbps) to 100 Mbps. This is way faster than what the competition is currently offering in the market.

As with Reliance Jio, pricing would be a key factor for the success of Reliance Jio broadband services.

Reliance Jio is expected to launch direct-to-home (DTH) TV services, which will broadcast native TV channels and stream online content with the help of Jio’s broadband services.

The Reliance Jio DTH service would offer more than 350 channels – with at least 50 high-definition (HD) channels. Also, the DTH services will make use of Jio’s cloud capabilities to store content for later viewing purpose and therefore the user will get the flexibility to save the program directly on cloud, therefore, eliminating the need of external storage device.

Reliance Jio is reportedly working on a feature phone that will support 4G VoLTE services. The feature phone also purportedly sports hardware buttons to use the suite of Jio apps. The phone will be subsidized by Reliance and might retail at a value ranging from Rs 999 – Rs 1,500.