Confirmed! Reliance Jio 4G Services To Officially Launch on Dec 27th!

Finally, it seems that we will see launch of much awaited Reliance Jio 4G Services. The date for launch is fixed for December 27^th a day prior to birth anniversary of its founder chairman Dhirubhai Ambani. According to a ET report, Reliance employees have got an invite from RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani and Nita Ambani.

While not too many details have come forward, this invitation is a sure sign that Reliance will officially announce launch of Jio 4G services to the world. Speculations of the December launch have been rife since May of this year!

ET reports that actor Shahrukh Khan will host the show, and A R Rahman is also expected to perform. The event will be beamed across the country in 1000 locations through live webcasts.

Another strong indication that Jio is now ready to unveil their services to the world came earlier this month, when they opened up Jio 4G services to their employees.

During this early employee-only beta launch, Jio offered their employees 4G enabled SIM cards and Volte handsets under their Lyf brand. The 4G SIM cards were loaded with 75GB of data, while Volte handsets were being offered at 25% discount for their employees.

Jio launch has been one of the most talked about event in telecom circles in India. Jio services are expected to be quite competitively priced and hence are looked upon as a major threat to incumbents.

Earlier this month, Credit Suisse came out with an assessment report in regards to Jio’s 4G services – the report noted that Jio network speeds averaged around 15-30Mbps download speeds. If Jio manages to offer similar speeds even after commercial launch, it will be very difficult for other operators to match the same. The report also said that voice calls over Jio network worked as well as regular cellular calls.

What really need to be seen is how well voice and data networks perform, once masses start to use it!

4G Services Launch by Other Operators

Meanwhile, India’s second largest mobile operator Vodafone recently launched their 4G services in Kerala.

With this, Vodafone has become 2^nd operator to launch 4G services, after Airtel. In a way, this is surprising, considering that Reliance Jio and Airtel were in race to be the first among 4G operators.

Idea is too very keen to start their own 4G services, as they have already bought Videocon’s spectrum in 2 circles by paying Rs 3310 crore. As per reports, they will launch their services by first half of 2016.

BSNL has already stated that their 4G platform will launch by March, 2016.