Airtel Broadband Declares War Against JioFiber; Aims 40 Lakh New Connections In 2018!
Analysts are predicting that it is a do or die situation for Airtel broadband: If they are not able to resist JioFiber’s aggressive stand, then they will be forgotten.
Airtel Broadband, which has been slowly but gradually making its presence felt, has now declared a full-fledged war against Reliance Jio’s broadband service JioFiber, which is expected to be launched anytime now.
As per reports coming in, Airtel is planning to add 40 lakh new customers by the time 2018 ends and has committed massive infrastructural spend to counter Jio’s disruptive plans.
Analysts are predicting that it is a do or die situation for Airtel broadband: If they are not able to resist JioFiber’s aggressive stand, then they will be forgotten, very soon.
Airtel Broadband Will Add 40 Lakh New Users?
Last year, Airtel Broadband crossed 20 lakh subscriber base, and they had celebrated the milestone by offering free data and other goodies.
But the celebration didn’t last long, as JioFiber has been sending out feelers and leaking their plan details, which promises nothing short of fireworks: 1.1 TB of free data with 100 Mbps speed is something we only dreamt about.
Now Airtel has understood the market dynamics of the broadband market, and they have decided to turn aggressive.
As per insider reports coming in, Airtel has internally decided to add 40 lakh new broadband customers this year, and some interesting plans can be unveiled very soon.
As of now, Airtel too is offering 100 Mbps plan across 89 cities for their 2.1 million (21 lakh users)
An Airtel official said,
“We have stepped up investments on home broadband. We do 400,000-500,000 home passes a year. Last year we did almost 2 million home passes,”
Airtel Planning Massive Investment for Broadband Expansion?
Another report states that Airtel is planning to spend $4 billion on improving and expanding their infrastructure this year.
Out of this, ‘few hundred’ crores would be set aside only for broadband.
An unnamed official said,
“Airtel has under-invested in home broadband so far…the investment behind this segment will be in the ballpark range of few hundred crores out of the overall capital expenditure of $4 billion by Airtel in 2018-19.”
Jio has also committed an investment of Rs 30,000 crore to improve their infrastructure.
This year, Airtel announced a new 300 Mbps plan, at a monthly rental of Rs 2,990 which also gives 1,200 GB of data.
On the other hand, JioFiber will offer 100 Mbps speed at Rs 500 per month, along with security deposit of Rs 4500.
No doubt average revenue per user in broadband will decrease once JioFiber comes into the picture, and Airtel knows that.
This is the reason Airtel is attempting to rope in as many broadband users as they can before JioFiber finally unleashes their tsunami.
We will keep you updated, as we receive more inputs.
Airtel Will never win by Jio , because Jio’s investment is too high as compare to Airtel
Look at those prices of Airtel broadband. Airtel has ALWAYS sucked the blood of customers and robbed them with useless value added services for many years.
If they ever offered customer friendly tariffs instead of feeding the mouth of Shahrukh khan & other celebrities maybe they would have had a loyal customer base instead of now running around like a headless chicken when Jio is competing.