4G LTE Broadband

Reliance Jio Launch Delayed / MisQuoted ?

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Reliance Jio LaunchMedia articles have stated that Jio launch is once again being delayed with expected timeline for launch now being 2H16 (versus our initial expectation of April-June timeframe), a recent company insider has mentioned that Jio launch is not being postponed and that there was a misquote. While we believe that few months of delay would not materially derail Jio’s proposition to consumers we think that the network is ready and working fine.

Our checks indicate that Jio network quality is fine with the company being able to offer consistent 10-15 Mbps speeds except for Rural Areas and Outskirts of Cities. We think that the company would have a circle-by-circle launch rather

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TRAI NetNeutrality Regulations Impact on Airtel Wynk / Jio Mags – Play – Beats Apps

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TRAI Net Neutrality Exploit WeaknessThough TRAI accepted / acknowledged most of our Regulations on NetNeutrality one of them is highly debatable and can create lot of controversy. In TRAI’s Consultation Paper [CP] the fourth question posed was – Is there any other issue that needs to be considered. We at DSLIndia have been tracking the Indian Telecom Sector for over 15 years and we know the pulse of each of the service provider. Our goal is to Maximize revenue to the Government and bat for high quality consumer experience. In this backdrop, we went into Out of the Box Thinking Mode and it is we who brought this idea to light to the officials of the TRAI to keep the entire Telecom Network Neutral and made the following suggestion, [Source PDF]

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How Vodafone and Airtel are vulnerable to Jio’s Public launch ?

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Vodafone IndiaAkash Ambai led Reliance Jio Infocomm is all set for public launch within the next couple of months. Before we dive into the details on how and why Airtel / Vodafone are the most vulnerable operators let us quickly look into data with ears on the ground.

Jio will launch with about 75,000 Cell Tower Locations and about 20,000 Small Sites / WiFi Spots. Target Locations of Launch – Metro Cities, Urban Centers and Semi-Urban Towns. Rural is excluded in the initial public launch and there are no Jio 4G signals in rural areas.

With such a Network Arrangement, Jio’s addressable market is 400 Mn Wireless Consumers in the above said geographical areas. How are these consumers stacked up ?

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How Can Reliance Jio Hit 100 Mn Subscribers ?

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Jio 100Mn Subscribers TargetReliance Jio has set an ambitious target of 100 Mn Subscribers in 100 days. We are skeptical about the same and Jio may achieve this number in a Year. Such an aggressive campaign would mean the company would have to seed at least 120 mn TD-LTE/Vo-LTE smartphones in the market to gain 100 mn subs.

While we think that device subsidies, cheaper tariffs and aggressive marketing would help Jio gain subs, we remain unsure how many subs will continue to stay with Jio over the longer-term. In our view a consistent good quality network, continued value proposition and consumer trust will be necessary for consumers to stay with Jio’s network.

Unlike a voice offering that just needs inserting a SIM card, for data offering a consumer needs a lot of hand holding for

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Reliance Jio – Looking Beyond Network

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Jio-Lyf-MobilesOver the last 18 months Reliance Jio’s has been on infrastructure, technology, and rollout milestones, amongst others. With the soft launch for employees having started, we look beyond the basic infrastructure and into product strategies.

RJio’s 4G network ourselves, is on par with incumbents in the urban areas, but is lacking in rural areas (maybe have roaming arrangements). Importantly, VoLTE works seamlessly in interconnecting with regular mobile/fixedline networks. The speeds are quite impressive, but remember it is also an empty network! Reliance Infocomm was reaching to masses however this time the strategy is exactly the opposite – Reach High End Customers with Unmatched Mobile Broadband Offering.

The biggest difference in RJio’s business model

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How is Reliance Jio Powering Last Mile 4G LTE Broadband ?

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exclusive1Last mile connectivity is the biggest challenge for 4G since the tower density needs to be much better than 2G/3G due to signal strength concerns. This is complicated the number of agencies (municipalities, housing societies, offices, etc) Jio has to seek approval from for laying infrastructure with minimum disturbance to existing ecosystem and managing the rhetoric around radiations.

As we write this, large parts of Mumbai have seen the laying of optical fibre cables by Jio. Further, in congested areas where telecom towers are difficult to put up, Jio has put up mini-towers (see below). Since they can be put up on existing street-light poles, traffic junctions, footpaths, etc the entry-barriers are low, both in terms of

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How will the 4G LTE Handset ecosystem evolve in India?

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4G LTE handset Ecosystem IndiaIndian Telecom Operators are unlikely to give handset subsidies given the predominant pre-paid market and past bitter experience of CDMA players. Incumbents instead are likely to encourage faster 4G handset adoption through bundling (offer some discount on data tariffs at the time of handset purchase). For example, Airtel is currently offering customers who upgrade their handsets to 4G double data for some time plus some other offers.

Like any other new entrant, Reliance Jio – a Greenfield 4G player – will be more aggressive in building the handset ecosystem without which any meaningful increase in its network capacity utilization will not be possible. As part of this –

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Reliance Jio Mobile Handset / Wireless Distributor Business

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Reliance Jio HandsetsReliance Jio Infocomm has 1,071 centres across the country with 35 in Mumbai alone. They will sell handsets as well as wireless services. The distribution network for handset and services are separate. Wireless services are 4x of Reliance centres, i.e. ~4,000 distributors whereas handsets are 40% of Reliance centres with 400 distributors.

Jio management aims to Create a healthy handset ecosystem at an attractive price. Currently, RJIO has four series of handsets: Water, Earth, Lyf and Flame; each of them has four

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Reliance Jio Launch – Device Strategy Unveiled

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Reliance Jio Mobile HandsetsReliance Jio Infocomm is expected to launch with three types of device offerings – 1) Dual SIM smartphones; 2) MiFi device; and 3) Vo-LTE smartphones. Amongst these, a dual SIM smartphone could be the most attractive to a consumer (in the early stages of launch) as they could continue to use their existing telecom providers’ SIM to make voice calls and use Jio’s SIM for access to high-speed data offerings.

RJio’s MiFi devices can be more popular among the niche high usage consumers (particularly youth) and expect it to compete head-on with dongle offerings from companies like RCOM, Tata and MTS. The uptake of Vo-LTE smartphone (which allow Vo-LTE calls) would be contingent on the quality of calls the new network is able to deliver. RJio suggest VoLTE trials have been

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Reliance Jio’s Contrarian Approach to Airtel – Adopts Asset Heavy Model

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Contrary to the current trend, Reliance Jio prefers an asset-heavy model. The basic premise is that assets created at a large scale and competitive capital cost provides a long-term competitive advantage through business cycles. Cost-leadership is the core mantra of Reliance Group – this is achieved via capacity creation at a massive scale. For the telecom sector, spectrum and technology are viewed as the two factors of production – the former is scarce and finite whereas technology costs tend to decrease exponentially. So Jio would tradeoff in favour of cheaper spectrum with nascent ecosystem compared to a technology with good current ecosystem.

At launch we estimate Jio to have

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