Batu69 Posted September 7, 2016 Share Posted September 7, 2016 India's richest man is rolling out a $20 billion mobile network that could bring lightning-fast Internet to hundreds of millions of people. Indian consumers are already celebrating the arrival of Mukesh Ambani's new Reliance Jio service, seizing on the billionaire's promise to deliver rock bottom prices and download speeds that will enable streaming video. The 4G network, which reaches more than 80% of the country, officially went live Monday with a set of generous introductory offers. Indians will be able to use Jio for free until the end of 2016, and pay as little as 149 rupees ($2.25) a month for data after that. "Anything and everything that can go digital is going digital -- at an exponential rate," Ambani told investors last week at his company's annual general meeting. "Life is going digital." Only one fifth of adults in India have access to the Internet. Few public Wi-Fi spots exist, and fast broadband connections require infrastructure that is rarely found in poorer urban areas, much less rural ones. But that is changing fast. If the Jio network succeeds, Ambani will be able to capitalize on a seismic shift that could see hundreds of millions of Indians come online in the coming years -- in most cases via a smartphone. It's a market that tech industry giants desperately want to crack. Google (GOOG) has installed free Wi-Fi at train stations across India, and Facebook (FB, Tech30) tried to offer a free version of its platform. Mukesh Ambani is taking a big risk building a network from scratch. Ambani has invested billions constructing nearly 100,000 telecoms towers across India. He estimates that Jio already covers some 18,000 cities and 200,000 villages. By March 2017, his aim is to reach 90% of the population. Building a national 4G network from scratch represents a major risk for Ambani, who got out of telecoms about 15 years ago after a dispute with his brother, Anil Ambani, who controls Reliance Communications. The brothers, who together are estimated to be worth $26 billion, have patched things up in recent years. Jio will be able to use radio frequencies owned by Reliance Communications. Rival networks have responded to the launch of Reliance Jio with special offers of their own, making a price war a near certainty. Airtel has slashed its prices for 3G and 4G service by 80%, and Vodafone (VOD) has boosted the amount of data in its plans by nearly 70%. If Jio, which means "live life" in Hindi, is to become another mega business in Reliance's stable of energy, media, chemicals and retail operations, the network will have to be able to handle the load from millions of new customers. On Tuesday in New Delhi, a device on the Reliance network was showing impressive download speeds of 21 megabits per second. With $20 billion at stake, that kind of performance needs to be replicated across India. Article source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jogs Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 Its actually not free, but only three months preview period. Also, the network doesn't reach out to 1 billion its available in only cities and towns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pc71520 Posted September 8, 2016 Share Posted September 8, 2016 6 hours ago, Jogs said: Its actually not free, but only three months preview period. Too bad... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted September 8, 2016 Administrator Share Posted September 8, 2016 Good article, covers everything mostly, could not have written better myself. If you ask for my personal opinion, I would never trust his company, I would rather trust other famous companies in India. Having said, this is a win-win situation for the country. As other telecom operators are getting a good competition and have started cutting rates. What this article does not mention however, is mentioned in this chart: Notice one thing. Completely free calls, nationwide, without any roaming charges, to any network in the country. While, this calling does rely on VoLTE, which is only supported by newer 4G enabled smartphones, this is a big thing in itself here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davmil Posted September 9, 2016 Share Posted September 9, 2016 17 hours ago, Jogs said: Its actually not free, but only three months preview period. Also, the network doesn't reach out to 1 billion its available in only cities and towns. Still, it's a generous offer. And if the $2.25/mo rate is real, someone's obviously underwriting that cost as well. Hopefully good things will come to all parties from his investment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sudoku Posted September 9, 2016 Share Posted September 9, 2016 20 hours ago, Jogs said: Its actually not free, but only three months preview period. Also, the network doesn't reach out to 1 billion its available in only cities and towns. You are wrong , first get into reality. Jio is available even in my home town where only availability was bsnl. Jio speed is fastest In India and i am getting 18-19 mb/s while downloading using IDM and i am using it from 1 year now. @ DKT27 You can trust mukesh ambani but not his brother anil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ice Frog Posted September 9, 2016 Share Posted September 9, 2016 though it not restrict to cities and town but it is true also that it's not available everywhere. i get good speeds from my airtel 4g even faster, so not claim that jio is fastest. maybe in your area but u cannot say for all over india. 10 hours ago, DKT27 said: this hide the availability of fact that wifi hotspot not very easy to find and if you find one, u see its already crowded. i atleast not see any jio hotspot in my area, so the rates which is calculated taking into the hotspot data as well doesn't work out for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted September 9, 2016 Administrator Share Posted September 9, 2016 17 hours ago, sudoku said: You are wrong , first get into reality. Jio is available even in my home town where only availability was bsnl. Jio speed is fastest In India and i am getting 18-19 mb/s while downloading using IDM and i am using it from 1 year now. @ DKT27 You can trust mukesh ambani but not his brother anil. Good to hear that. About the brothers, you are absolutely correct here. That is what the everyone's views are here. Infact, we have been even scammed by his brother's company and are continued to be scammed by his brother's electricity company which just loots people here. The elder brother is good and have heard some good things about his talents, practices, expertise and such. Also, no Mumbaikar will let go his company thanks to the cricket team, we consider them a part of the family here. But the problem is company name. Somehow it keeps ringing a bad bell. Maybe, someday, if everyone of us get an VoLTE based smartphone, which I must say, even my Google phone does not support, then we may switch to their service or such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnakeMasteR Posted September 9, 2016 Share Posted September 9, 2016 Where is XXX in the chart? ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
niTe_RiDeR_Pr0 Posted September 10, 2016 Share Posted September 10, 2016 Nice article... I am using Airtel 4G since 2015 in Bangalore, & its pretty good... But according to OpenSignalMap, in many places in Bangalore, where there is no/very poor Airtel 4G signal, Jio 4G is having good signal strength with >5 Mbps average speed. Also, where there is good Airtel 4G signal strength, the average speed of Airtel 4G is 15 Mbps whereas Jio 4G is having >20 Mbps average speed. Vodafone 4G's signal strength is too poor in many places (as it was recently launched), & it has lower speeds as it uses a lower 4g frequency than Airtel 4G. Looks like Jio 4G has emerged succesful, & if Jio 4G doesn't increase their tariff & keeps improving their network, then Jio 4G will be a grand success later on with more & more people opting for Jio 4G. Anyways, until 2017 I will be using Airtel 4g because as for now it is very reliable & I have not had any issues till date (except that new Airtel sims take more than a week for 4g to get activated) The only drawback with Jio 4G is that it uses VoLTE network, which many 4g phones do not support (majority of 4g phones support only TD-LTE & FDD-LTE network, which Airtel & Vodafone are using) I may also buy a Jio 4G sim soon, as the network, the mission, the offers & the plans look very promising, and both my OnePlus One & my Lenovo Vibe K5 supports VoLTE (Yay!) You guys can check if your smartphone supports VoLTE here: http://www.newstelecom.info/2016/01/reliance-jio-volte-supported-4g-phones/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arsenaloyal Posted September 10, 2016 Share Posted September 10, 2016 have used this....seems to be good initially. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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