Vodafone India May Soon Introduce Converged Broadband Solutions!
This decision may have been influenced by Idea's recent entry and Jio's imminent entry in the broadband segment.
Yesterday we had reported that JioFiber is going to be launched soon, as early as next month. Going by the past records, Jio will surely look to disrupt the broadband market, just like it did with the mobile internet market. Jio’s entry into the broadband market has had other players scrambling to restructure their plans and cutting down prices.
Airtel is one of the older players in the broadband sector and Idea have recently launched their own broadband services starting with Pune. What many of you may not know that Vodafone had recently acquired YOU broadband to strengthen their fibre optic network.
Now Vodafone believes they have found the perfect business model to stay on the greener side of profits; Converged Fast Broadband Solutions. Vodafone India is reportedly in the process of creating bundled wired home broadband packs with their 3G/4G high-speed mobile service.
Will it work? Let’s find out.
Converged Broadband Solutions – The New Buzzword?
Faced with a tough competition from the market leader Airtel and the brash upstart Jio, Vodafone India is in the midst of a major restructuring of its plans to stay relevant in a rapidly shrinking market. To this end, it has decided to adopt the converged broadband solutions business model.
Vodafone has successfully tried this business model in its other international markets like the UK, Germany, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. In India, Vodafone will leverage its acquisition, YOU Broadband’s infrastructure and the insatiable demand for data to successfully replicate the model. YOU Broadband has an extensive network of over 3,000 km of optic fibre cable and around 17,000 km of last-mile coaxial wires to homes in 18 data-consuming markets which includes the likes of Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Mumbai, Nagpur and Pune
But Vodafone will have to hurry if they want to beat JioFibre’s commercial launch to the market. Jio is already testing its wired broadband services in key data markets like Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. Users are enjoying 100GB of free high-speed data per month during the testing phase. But Jio is well-known and feared for its ruthless pricing as seen in the telecom sector where it has disrupted the entire sector.
If Vodafone is serious about its success, it needs to be in the market before JioFibre.
Growing Demand For High-Speed Connectivity
While speaking with a tech website, a Vodafone India spokesperson said,
“The addition of YOU Broadband positions us well to serve the growing demand for high-speed connectivity at home and perfectly complements Vodafone’s own nationwide data smart mobile network,”
He also added that Vodafone India is looking to “offer customers cutting-edge internet speeds and consistent experience for enabling seamless HD video streaming and browsing across multiple devices simultaneously” by leveraging and combining YOU Broadband’s infrastructure and resources.
Ultimately, it is us, the users, who will benefit. With the entry of Idea Broadband, JioFibre and now Vodafone there will be a further drop in prices from all broadband service providers like Airtel Broadband, ACT Fiber, BSNL, and MTNL in a bid to retain their existing customers.
I think now there will be consolidation in Wired broadband sector and we may see smaller players like Den, Hathway, ACT, Siti broadband etc selling of their business and then we have Jio giga fiber, Airtel broadband and Vodafone-Idea broadband.
Hang on – didn’t Voda and Idea MERGE a few days back??? How can one of them be doing one thing, and the other another??!!
grate in formations