Reliance Jio launches 4G services for employees
28 Dec 2015
Reliance Jio, the telecom arm of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd, launched 4G services for its employees on Sunday, the eve of Reliance founder chairman Dhirubhai Ambani s 83rd birth anniversary.
"I want all of you to take five things back: digital life, connected intelligence, Jio life, Jio together and Why Jio? Because life is going digital. Let me now welcome Jio," Reliance chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani said at the event in Mumbai.
The company will begin the commercial roll-out of the service from March-April. The launch event was held at Reliance Corporate Park, while RIL's other employees were virtually connected at around 1,000 locations, including Dallas in the US.
The event started with Mukesh's mother Kokilaben Ambani lighting lamps. She was joined by Mukesh and his wife Nita Ambani, grandsons Akash and Anant, and granddaughter Isha Ambani. Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan, who is the brand ambassador for Reliance Jio 4G services, performed at the function with songs, including the 'Gerua' song from his latest movie Dilwale. A R Rehman performed the famous 'Jai Ho' song and a track from Swades.
The entire live broadcast of the event is said to have been connected with Jio's own digital network to demonstrate capabilities of the network for enterprises and corporates in India, which is specifically targeting large distribution companies, the source said. Reliance Jio holds the biggest chunk of liberalised spectrum among telecom operators and that can be used for deploying any technology for mobile services.
A video presentation showed features of Jio's optical fibre service promising video calling using smart television sets, and internet speed of up to one gigabyte per second. The Jio TV service will accept voice command to change channels and subscriber will not require remote control to do so.
According to field trials by brokerage firm Credit Suisse, download speed on 4G network of Reliance Jio during beta-test peaked at 70 megabit per second but remained in the 15-30 mbps range on most occasions.
"Jio will help advance and realise the potential of every Indian and India. I have no doubt that with the launch of Jio, India's rank will go up from around 150 to among the top ten in the next few years for internet and mobile broadband penetration," Ambani said.
