Reliance Jio Infocomm wishes to integrate 800Mhz Spectrum from Reliance Communications before launching commercial services in a phased manner spanning over the next 3 to 9 months. The next 2 months will see upscaled trials (beyond employees), to test scalability and coverage. Their biggest advantage is the pan-India 800 Mhz spectrum for LTE, while none of the incumbents are launching LTE on sub-Ghz spectrum.
Reliance Jio is unlikely to use the 2G/3G network of even roaming partners like RCOM/BSNL, their network coverage needs to be near-perfect for launch. We are not very clear on why they are not opting for a circuit-switched-fallback for voice.
Jio Coverage now at >70% of population, with 90-92k towers: The towers are 50% owned, and nearly all have been shifted to multi-antenna to enable the seamless usage of 800/1800/2300 Mhz spectrum. Fibre footprint has now reached 270k kms (including leased fibre).
Reliance Jio Customer Acquisition Strategy
Jio shall be enticing customers not just on the basis of cheaper tariffs, but also on quality of service. Current beta testing for employees indicates ~18GB/month of data usage and 250min/month of voice usage. This will of course fall once the services are no longer free, but do given an indication of latent demand. Jio believes that the loss of first-mover advantage due to delays in launching 4G will not be an issue for them, as the customers can now easily switch between providers if the services/prices are differentiated.