Mukesh Ambani announces launch of fixed line services

After shaking the mobile telephony market with free voice calls and dirt cheap data, richest Indian Mukesh Ambani today announced plans to launch ultra high speed fixed line broadband services for homes and enterprises.

Speaking at the company's 41st annual general meeting, Ambani said the service will provide ultra high definition entertainment on TV, voice activated assistance, virtual reality gaming and digital shopping as well as smart home solutions.

"We will now extend fiber connectivity to homes, merchants, small and medium enterprises and large enterprises simultaneously across 1,100 cities to offer the most advanced fiber-based broadband connectivity solutions," he said.

Jio, the company's telecom service, will move India to top five nations in fixed line broadband in coming year, Ambani said.

Its launch in September 2016 has made India the highest mobile data consuming nation.

Ambani said since its launch, Jio has amassed 215 million customers and has sold over 25 million Jio phones.

The Jio phone, which was offered on payment of are fundable security deposit only, will provide Whatsapp, Facebook and Youtube commercially from August 15 this year, he said.

The fixed line broadband will offer "ultra high-definition entertainment on large screen TVs, multi-party video conferencing from your living room, voice-activated virtual assistants, virtual reality gaming, digital shopping, immersive experiences," he said.

The service will be called 'Jio GigaFiber Service'.

Ambani targets 100 million Jio phone users in 'shortest possible time'. Registration for fixed line broadband service will begin from August 15, Ambani said.

He also announced that Jio Phone Monsoon Hungama starting July 21, where feature phones can be exchanged for Jio Phone for Rs 501.

Reliance, he said, has reached an inflection point with consumer business contributing as much as its energy and petrochemical.