Reliance Jio GigaFiber: Expected launch date, data plans, services and more

Announced last year at the Reliance Industries annual general meeting, the Jio GigaFiber was initially touted to launch in 1,100 cities simultaneously

After running trials at select cities, Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Jio’s broadband service Jio GigaFiber is expected to commercially launch on August 12. Announced last year at the Reliance Industries annual general meeting, the service was initially touted to launch in 1,100 cities simultaneously. The company also claimed that the service would offer internet speed of up to one gigabyte per second (Gbps) and support additional services such as television, landline, smart home automation, etc.

Let’s take a look at what is expected from Jio GigaFiber:

Refundable deposit

Under the preview offer, the Jio GigaFiber broadband services are provided by the company without any cost, but to obtain the connection, user need to deposit a refundable security deposit of Rs 4,500. After the launch, the refundable security deposit is expected to stay. However, there are chances that the company might announce a revised refundable security deposit amount with different services and internet bandwidth as part of package. 

Data plans

Though there has been no confirmation about Jio GigaFiber data plans, Reliance is expected to price its home broadband service’ base package at around Rs 500 per month. It is, however, expected that the base plan would not offer claimed internet speed of up to 1Gbps, which would be part of company’s premium plans. Besides monthly data plans, the company is also expected to have quarterly, half yearly and yearly plans.

Additional services

At the Jio GigaFiber announcement, the company stated that the broadband services would also support additional services, including Jio GigaTV, home automation and landline services. The GigaTV is Jio’s digital television content services. According to the company’s statement, the GigaTV set-top-box would offer internet-based digital content services, along with access to Jio’s app suite. The set-top-box would also support a video calling feature, which would allow users to make video calls from their televisions. It is still to be seen how the feature would work as the televisions currently does not support camera, in-build or external. The GigaTV remote would be voice-enabled, which would make it work with voice commands – something similar to how the Amazon’s Fire Stick remote works.

Besides GigaTV, the company also announced plans to introduce home automation products such as security cameras and other voice-controlled automation products. There are chances that these products will be launched alongside the GigaFiber launch.