Reliance ends free home broadband, starts billing Jio fiber users
03 Dec 2019
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Reliance Jio Infocomm has started billing new customers and is asking existing users to select home broadband packs, a move that ends free broadband service for its fiber to the home customers and opens a new revenue streams for Jio.
All new JioFiber customers, who’ve put in the Rs2,500 refundable deposit, are now being charged in the big metro markets, and commercial billing on a pan-India basis would start in a couple of weeks, reports citing sources at the company stated.
The Mukesh Ambani-led telco, he said, has started onboarding its 500,000-odd users who signed up for JioFiber trials well before the September commercial launch to specific tariff plans, an exercise that’s likely to be completed in phases over a month.
Customers who had opted for free trials are being told that free home broadband services will be discontinued shortly and they need to migrate to specific JioFiber plans to stay connected.
JioFiber’s tariff plans range from Rs699 to Rs8,499 a month, with speeds from 100 Mbps to 1Gbps. The plans are bundled with services such as gaming, home network sharing, TV video calling and conferencing, device security and access to a content platform.
There are an estimated 700,000 JioFiber users now and if users opt for both 4G mobility and fiber broadband services, it could give a big boost to Jio’s overall profitability.
The home broadband market has a modest 18 million customers, of which half are with state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam. Airtel had 2.35 million home broadband users in the September quarter.
Jio is said to be targeting 20 million homes and 16 million enterprises across 1,600 towns and aims to complete the rollout in 12-18 months.
Airtel has connected 10 million homes on its broadband network, while its user base is 2.35 million.
