RJio upbeat on trial run, launches website

Jio has a pan-India 4G network coverage, claiming to be 80 times faster than rivals

As Reliance Jio gears towards upgrading its ongoing trial run of the fourth-generation technology (4G) network into a commercial operation over the next few months, it says it already has at least half a million users.

In an investor presentation, the company said, it \"launched full scale service for RIL group employees, partners, vendors and associates on December 28 and over 500,000 users are on board\". The launch is now being expanded to others, it said.

Last month, it began a Reliance Jio employee referral program for its 4G service; each staffer could invite up to 10 friends to sign up. Initial feedback on the trial run was \"very encouraging\", it said.

In the first month of the trial, average monthly data consumption was 18 GB and average monthly voice usage was a bit over 250 minutes, according to a presentation dated last Thursday.

Jio is also testing its digital applications that are to come bundled with the connection. These include Jio Money, Jio Chat, Jio Drive, Jio Play and Jio News. The company's website, Jio.com, also went live on Thursday.

A June 1 note by IDFC Securities, whose research team recently did a stress test on the RJio network in Mumbai, says, “Initial high usage by subscribers (18 GB/month) under the free trial period may not be the right benchmark.\" This is because the network experience could differ materially once the load increases, it added.

“Nonetheless, better throughput (amount of data that can be moved successfully from one place to another in a given time period), with useful content at a reasonable price, could drive a 3-4x increase in data consumption from the current levels of 700-800 MB/month,” it said.

Reliance Jio Infocomm, subsidiary of Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries, has a pan-India 4G network coverage, claiming to be 80 times faster than rivals. Experts say its rates are likely to be as low as 0.5p for 10 KB of data and 5p per second for video calls. The base rate for local and STD calls is likely to be 2p a second.

At present, Jio has 4G frequencies in the 1,800 and 2,300 MHz bands in 18 and 22 circles, respectively, and 800 MHz in 10 circles. It will have the 800 MHz band in all the 22 circles after completing its transaction with Reliance Communications, with which it has a trading and sharing pact, the presentation said.

Jio says network rollout is substantially over and it is now in the process of receiving 800 MHz spectrum in more circles, to be integrated shortly thereafter. “Final approvals are anticipated for completion of trading and sharing arrangements with RCom for spectrum in the 800 MHz band,” the company said, adding no other operator had deployed LTE in the sub-GHz band in the industry.