Reliance Jio Infocomm will start offering 4G services for free to its own employees on 27 December, but full commercial launch is still some way off, according to the Indian press.
The would-be newcomer to India’s mobile market sent out an invitation to its 20,000-plus staff to participate in the soft launch, which coincides with events to mark the 83rd anniversary of the birth of the late Dhirubhai Ambani, founder of Reliance Industries, the Economic Times reported on Saturday.
The free offer will run until the telco launches the service commercially in the April-May timeframe, a source close to the matter told the paper.
By that time, the operator will have spent 1 trillion rupees (€13.9 billion) on buying frequencies, rolling out its network and retail outlets, and on HR and marketing, it added.
Reliance Jio holds a pan-Indian licence and a variety of mobile spectrum, including the 800-MHz and 1800-MHz frequencies it picked up at a cost of just over 100 billion rupees in this year’s auction. It previously indicated it would launch services in 2015, but never committed to a firm date, and in October announced it would bring a commercial service to market in the 2016-2017 financial year, which begins in April.
In the meantime, the firm has introduced Jio Chat, a WhatsApp-style over-the-top (OTT) voice and messaging service. That move suggests that its full 4G offer will be highly data-centric.
