RIL invests over Rs 1.5 lk cr in telecom, internet venture

Reliance Industries has invested over Rs 150,000 crore in its 4G internet and telecom venture, Jio, Chairman Mukesh Ambani said today, promising to deliver mobile broadband speed that would be 40 to 80 times faster than the current average speeds.
The soon-to-be-launched Jio would come with a whole host of applications and services and huge library of audio and visual content, he said addressing FICCI Frames here.
"Digitisation is the defining trend of this century. In fact, that is the very reason that we at Reliance conceived Jio. It is one of the largest transformational green-field digital initiatives anywhere in the world with an investment of over Rs 150,000 crore," he said.

Jio beta launched its services in December 2015 on Reliance founders day with plans for commercial launch this year.
"I have no doubt that with the launch of Jio, India's rank will go up from 150 to among the top 10 of mobile Internet rankings in the world," he said.
While the coverage of mobile broadband in India is only about 15-20 per cent, US has around 75 per cent coverage. "Jio will start services with 70 per cent coverage of India. From Day One," he said.

Jio would help the industry coverage of the country reach over 90 per cent.

"From Day One, Jio mobile broadband will offer speeds that are about 40 to 80 times faster than the current average speeds," he said adding Jio network is engineered to provide a capacity of 10GB per month for every year.
Stating that all of this would be of no use if it was not accessible and affordable to consumers in all parts of the country, Ambani said, "Jio will significantly up the quantity, quality and coverage for broadband Internet while lowering the cost to the user."
Jio, he said, was not just a telecom network. It is an entire ecosystem consisting of devices, broadband networks, powerful applications and services, distributed to every doorstep in India.

Its offerings will include the most comprehensive libraries and programming of recorded and live music, sports, live and catchup television, movies and events, he said.
He however did not say when Jio would launch commercial services.
Last week, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch had said that the commercial launch of Jio is likely to get pushed to December 2016.
"Despite completing an employee soft launch in December 2015, we do not yet have visibility on the timeline on commercial launch by Jio. In our recent meetings with industry participants, we found a consistent view coming out of risks of Jio launch being pushed to December 2016," it said.

Credit Suisse however believes Jio is preparing for a soft launch of its 4G services soon.
"Our visits to Reliance Digital stores in Mumbai revealed that the stores are preparing for a possible soft launch of Jio's 4G connections soon," it said.