As we predicted two week ago, Reliance Jio has kicked off its advertisement campaign for its bundled 4G and smartphone offer during the Indian Premier League.
The first ad features the who’s who of Indian cricket, including captain MS Dhoni and star hitter Virat Kohli.
The advertisement also features Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut, and has been shot by Rajkumar Hirani. The commercial was reportedly shot in March, and aired for the first time yesterday evening. Kangana was, at the time, busy with shooting Rangoon, but completed the ad film in just one day.
RELIANCE JIO 4G LAUNCH DATE NEAR
The move indicates that the launch of Reliance Jio’s 4G services — first through bundled offers with LYF handsets — is very close.
The bundled SIM and LYF handset will be sold through Reliance Digital stores as well as well as regular handset dealers.
As we reported earlier, SIM cards had reached stockists in the first week of this month.
Despite stocks being ready for the launch, the company did not show the green signal as it reportedly had some last minute hiccups with the activation process.
The launch of the advertising campaign shows that the last minute glitches have been ironed out and retailers are probably already selling LYF handsets with bundled SIM cards.
“We are hoping to hear from them today,” said a retailer we spoke to.
He said he has not been informed of the plans by company agents yet.
However, separately, a video has been leaked online which shows the upcoming website of Reliance Jio (www.jio.com).
According to the video, anyone buying a LYF handset will get 75 GB of free 4G data, 4500 minutes and 9000 SMS with validity of 90 days. The offer is valid on the entire range of LYF handsets starting from the cheapest one costing Rs 5,000.
Similarly, if someone were to buy the Mifi device for Rs 1,999, he would get 75 GB of free data valid for three months, but no voice or free SMS.
RCOM AND JIO TO LAUNCH TOGETHER?
The advertisement campaign has begun just five days before Reliance Communications — a network partner of RJio — is scheduled to move its CDMA subscribers to their companies’ joint 4G network.
As we have reported earlier, RCom is all set to give replacement 4G-enabled SIM cards to its CDMA customers starting Monday. This is being done so that its 800 MHz CDMA spectrum can be tested and put into service for the joint 4G network.
At present, the 850 MHz band has been tested only in certain states (where MTS is present). However, over the past 10 days or so, the two companies have been carrying out extensive testing of the 850 MHz 4G network across the country.
This has disrupted RCom’s CDMA service, in turn leading to consumer dissatisfaction. However, the company has urged its subscribers to hold on till Monday and then get their CDMA UIM cards swapped for a 4G SIM card.
The 4G SIM card does not require a 4G handset to be used, and works on 95% of the existing handsets in India, according to company sources.
THREAT TO INCUMBENTS
The fast developments have come as a shock to incumbent telecom operators, who were hoping that Jio’s 4G services would be delayed to the end of the year as reported by analysts.
However, the RIL-unit is comfortable enough with its infrastructure readiness that it is offering to move RCom voice and data subscribers to its 4G network, while on the other hand offering bundled connections and LYF phones of its own.
As we’ve already reported, Reliance Communications customers will have to choose new plans after upgrading their SIM cards as CDMA plans typically include features such as unlimited data browsing and so on, which will not be offered on the new network.
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