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Indian operator shares latest milestone in 4G project, says commercial service will launch ‘in coming months.’
Reliance Jio Infocomm has signed up half a million customers to the trial version of its pan-India LTE service, it revealed recently.
The firm has yet to launch its new voice and data offering commercially, but opened it up to employees and other partners and associates in late December.
"Over half a million users have been onboarded on the network," Jio’s parent company Reliance Industries said in its financial report for the year to the end of March, published on Friday.
"The initial feedback is very encouraging and has established smooth operations of all aspects of the network," the company said.
Average monthly data consumption is in excess of 18 GB "and is increasingly rapidly," Jio said. Average voice usage was 250 minutes in the first month.
"The launch is now being expanded to others in the ecosystem," the firm said. "This test programme will be progressively upgraded into commercial operations in [the] coming months."
Reliance Jio has faced some criticism for the time it is taking to bring commercial services to market. According to the latest reports, the launch might not come before the end of the year.
The firm is working on the rollout of LTE, fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and WiFi infrastructure to support fixed and wireless broadband services as well as mobile voice and data. It already offers Jio Chat, an over-the-top voice and messaging application that it introduced a year ago.
Reliance Jio holds a unified licence and 751 MHz of spectrum in the 800 MHz, 1800 MHz and 2.3 GHz bands, including pan-Indian frequencies in the last. It has also brokered various spectrum-sharing deals with Reliance Communications to gain access to more airwaves in the 800 MHz band and plans to extend those agreements to gain pan-Indian 800-MHz frequencies, subject to government approval.
"Only Reliance Jio is using [the] sub-GHz spectrum band for LTE services in the country today," the firm said, adding that its various spectrum holdings will give it significant network capacity and deep in-building coverage.
