The company is reportedly offering 1.1TB free data at 100Mbps speeds to its Jio FTTH broadband customers in some select regions and is said to roll out the service commercially by the second half of this year.
Reliance Jio made waves due to its disruptive pricing in the telecom sector, and it was long expected that the company would do the same with Fiber To The Home (FTTH) services. The service was finally rolled out to select batch of customers across various cities, with no word on commercial release timeline. The Hindu now reports that the company is offering 1.1 TB free data at 100 Mbps speeds for its existing FTTH broadband consumers in select regions. The report also adds that the service could launch officially by the second half of this year and users interested in joining the company’s home broadband service will need to pay an interest-free refundable security deposit of Rs 4,500. The company is also said to “connect multiple devices using the dual-band JioFiber Home Gateway”, which seems to be another moniker for the Jio router. Their customers will also get to choose Jio ‘extend’ options, which hints at company’s own WiFi signal repeaters. The company’s head of strategy and planning, Anshuman Thakur also says that the company’s FTTH network will cover 99 percent of the country and they will soon be ready to roll out the services.
As per The Hindu’s source, “The initial FTTH plan includes 100 gigabytes (GB) of free data at 100 Mbps speed; once the data limited is exhausted, the customers can do top-up of 40 GB of free data 25 times in a month, effectively meaning 1,100 GB of free data a month,” The company will reportedly launch the service for both home and enterprise customers. The source adds, ”The company will install the Jio router, which can be also used as a set-top box when the company launches internet protocol television (IPTV) services. The idea is to give a host of services using one box.” This means that the company is aiming to bundle other services with its broadband service like IPTV, which is in line with previous reports that Jio has scrapped its plans for launching a DTH service.
Since last year, there were rumours that the company is working on its own DTH services. However, a previous report tipped that the company had dismissed these rumours and would not be introducing the said service. Some images of the alleged Jio DTH Set-top Box (STB) were also leaked online previously which revealed an ethernet port along with HDMI, USB and Audio-Video ports, hinting at a Hybrid DTH service. It was also spotted in an unboxing video on YouTube, which reiterated the same and reports suggested that it would offer over 360 channels out of which at least 50 would be viewable in HD. A Hybrid STB, unlike the conventional STB, offers cable programming and streaming content as well. The report also says that users will be able to stream content from Netflix or Amazon Prime Video via Jio’s STB itself, which eliminates the need for purchasing streaming devices like Amazon Fire Stick or Chromecast.
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