RIL asks staff to shift their mobile connection to Reliance Jio
23 Aug 2016
Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has asked its 40,000-plus employees to port their existing mobile phone connections to Reliance Jio's high-speed 4G network, in a move that could further antagonise operators like Airtel and Vodafone.
Reliance Industries employees, enrolled in the corporate mobile services plan, have been asked to terminate their connections with other mobile operators and use mobile number portability services to shift to Reliance Jio.
Airtel, Vodafone and other operators are already up in arms against the Mukesh Ambani-led firm's prolonged beta testing that they say has already encroached the customer base of other operators. The latest move would further widen the chasm between RJIL and other operators.
Reliance Jio claims to have over 1.5 million existing users and the addition of the workforce and possible MNPs could strengthen the network further. Mobile telephone users can use Mobile Number Portability (MNP) to port their existing phone numbers to another service network, while retaining their existing numbers.
"We are excited to announce yet another milestone towards greater excellence, where we will be switching our existing corporate connections to Jio," RIL's HR department wrote to all its employees.
It asked employees to use MNP to port their existing numbers to Jio and explained to them the step-by-step process.
Mobile number portability (MNP) enables telephone users to retain their number when changing from one carrier to other.
"Once you have submitted the required information, we will initiate the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) process with the existing operator. This will take around seven working days to complete," the company HR said in the email.
Reliance Jio test -its services last December, but no dates for commercial launch has yet been announced.
Reliance also extended the sale of its SIM cards to the general public after initially making available only to its employees, and later bundled with Reliance's own Lyf-branded smartphones.
