It was supposed to destroy the competition and unleash a new era in TV watching, but Reliance Jio’s DTH service has so far failed to turn up on the rumored launch date of Dec 15.
As we had predicted last month, the company had no plans of launching any DTH service, and did not tie up with any satellite provider for leasing transponder capacity. Our checks with company and industry sources continue to indicate that there are no plans to launch a DTH service.
In contrast, many prominent publications, including the Indian Express, Dainik Bhaskar online and others had reported that Reliance Jio will launch a DTH service soon, with most predicting Dec 15 as the launch date.
“Reliance Jio’s next big offering: 1Gbps optical fibre broadband and DTH,” said a report by the Indian Express on Nov 14, setting off a flurry of speculation on similar lines.
“Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm is likely to launch its DTH services with disruptive pricing on December 15, 2016,” said a report by Economic Times on Nov 15.
Gizbot, a gadgets portal, reported that the service subscription will be free for the first six months just like the 4G service and subscription charge will start at Rs 185 per month.
The Gizbot report also said the telco is expected to launch various combo-packs in India. The South Indian Channel Combo will be priced at Rs. 195 per month, while the Sports Channel Combo will be available starting from Rs. 210 per month. The Sports Channel combo pack will also offer channels like Star, Zee TV, Colors and Sony, said the publication.
The launch was supposed to shake up the industry, currently dominated by players like Dish TV, Airtel Digital, Tata Sky and Sun Direct, and give these players a run for their money.
Most of these channels require subscription packs of around Rs 350 per month for a decent set of channels including sports channels.
However, as of today, there seems to be no sign of any DTH launch from from the Ambani firm.
BROADBAND?
As we had pointed out in our report last month, most of these publications seemed to have misunderstood the fiber-to-home broadband service as DTH.
Jio has indeed announced that it will roll out a fiber-to-the-home broadband service in select cities.
Reliance Jio has started rolling out 1 Gbps fiber-to-home connections in “select cities”, Mukesh Ambani had said one month before DTH rumors started spreading.
Ambani also said the fiber service will eventually be launched in 100 cities in the country.
Like any high-speed broadband service, the JioFiber service can also be used to watch TV channels and Youtube.
As such, you can use connect your smartphone to the Internet using any broadband service and using apps such as JioTV, YuppTV and Hotstar, you can watch live TV channels.
These channels can also be watched on your TV with the help of screencasting devices such as Chromecast, Miracast dongles and so on. Some TV support screencasting directly without the help of any external devices.