Reliance Jio could be the biggest 4G player in the country even before its commercial launch, coming this Diwali

Commercial launch of billionaire Mukesh Ambani's telecom venture Reliance Jio is one of the most awaited launches for the country for a long time now but we hear it’s going to be a big festive launch for Jio’s 4G services. Even before the launch Jio has already packed in 1.5million subscribers since they did a soft launch in December last year. A brokerage CLSA note says “Jio may already be handling the second highest data traffic among all telecom operators and could ramp up close to the highest even before launch,".

Capacity

Reliance Jio has been clear that when they come it’s going to be with a capacity that can allow fastest internet access to subscribers. CLSA said “Jio’s subscribers are already using an average of 26 GB a month, Jio's monthly data traffic is nearing 39 million GB. Jio's network may already be handling the second­ highest data traffic". And even with major rise in traffic on Jio network, CLSA’s tests reveal no notable drop in user experience. CLSA note says Jio's network can easily handle usage of 5 GB per month data each by over 100 million subscribers. And that may be Jio’s core strategy too.

Pricing

While it’s clear that when the Jio commercial launch happens, it’s going to be one of the biggest tariff wars in the industry as Reliance Jio is expected to come with never seen before offers. So far Jio is offering 3 month complementary services with their LYF handsets and they have recently dropped the entry level price of LYF's 4G phones. Jio has also extended the offer with premium Samsung 4G phones as well and may further extend the offer to Apple and HP devices as well. “Addition of subscribers with other devices may boost overall traffic and Jio can become the largest data network even before its commercial launch,” the brokerage predicted.