Heena Sharma Blog

Three years after elbowing into the Indian wireless phone market with free calls and data, billionaire Mukesh Ambani is back at it. This time, Asia's richest man is handing out TVs to hook users on movies and entertainment shows via internet. The tycoon is wedging into a business teeming with players from rival mobile carriers to Netflix Inc and Amazon.com Inc. Ambani's JioFiber broadband service , scheduled to start Thursday across India, comes with a high-definition television and set-top boxes at no charge for annual lifetime subscribers. The offer by Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, the tycoon's wireless powerhouse, includes subscriptions to most premium streaming services with prices starting from Rs 700 (about $10) a month. The fiber-TV salvo comes days after Jio formally swept into the No. 1 spot for wireless services after free calls and cheap data lured hundreds of millions of subscribers and left rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd struggling under...

Telecom operator Reliance Jio is slated to launch optic fibre-based Jio Fibre broadband service today. At the company's Annual General Meeting (AGM) last month, Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani announced that JioFibre customers would get free voice calls for life from landline, 100 megabit (mbps) to 1 gigabit per second broadband speed for subscription starting Rs 700 a month and a free HD TV set on commitment to an annual plan. Jio is targeting 35 million subscribers within the first year of commercially operationalising the broadband business. Officials told PTI the company would target 1,600 towns from the first day of the launch and would initially try to reach out to the rest of the country through 30,000 local cable operators who are aligned to three multi-system operators acquired by it recently. Jio Fiber plans Though the company is yet to unviel official plan details, Reliance Jio has made it clear that the plans will range fro...

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani on Monday announced the roll-out of ' Jio Fiber ' from September 5, promising free voice calls for life from landlines, 100 mbps minimum broadband speed at subscription starting from Rs 700 a month and free HD TV set on a commitment to an annual plan. Speaking at the 42nd Annual General Meeting (AGM), Reliance Industries' Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said Jio will also offer unlimited international calling pack from its landlines to the US and Canada at Rs 500 a month, and that default tariff plans will be one-fifth to one-tenth of existing market tariffs. "...voice calls from home to any Indian operator - mobile or fixed - will be absolutely free forever. On fixed-line international voice calling, we are today ending the era of high international calling rates on landline by announcing the lowest fixed line rates for international calling...," he said. Jio Fiber services would be available on a commercial basi...