Reliance Jio Infocomm soft-launches 4G telecom services for employees at mega event- The employee launch of Jio precedes the commercial launch of the service that is expected in early 2016.
The service was launched by company’s Chairman Mukesh Ambani, founder of the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) on Reliance Founder Chairman Dhirubhai Ambani’s 83rd birth anniversary on December 28; Reliance Jio will roll out its 4G service for its employees, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani announced at a mega launch event in Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra.
Reliance Jio Infocomm has launched its much-awaited but delayed 4G service, albeit only for group employees, setting the stage for a mega battle between billionaires Mukesh Ambani, Sunil Mittal and Kumar Mangalam Birla for the spoils in India’s $50 billion (Rs335,000 crore) telecom industry.
Reliance Jio has launched 4G (4th Generation) telecom service using LTE (Long Term Evolution) Technology.
This initial phase of 4G service was launched for limited to 85000 employees and their families of the company. However the commercial services to begin by April 2016 throughout country.
Features:
The Jio 4G Service has three-pronged features focusing on broadband networks, affordable smart phones and the availability of rich content and applications. It seeks to provide unique combination of high speed data up to 1 gigabyte per second (Gbps), telecom, media, digital commerce and payment services.
India’s 4G profile:
With this launch Reliance Jio became fourth telecom service provider in India to launch 4G service. Sunil Bharti Mittal led Airtel was first telecom service provider in the country to launch 4G service using LTE Technology in Kolkata in 2012. It was followed by Aircel in July 2014 (in 4 circles Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and Odisha) and Vodafone India on 8th December 2015 in Kochi, Kerala.
About 4G:
- 4G LTE is wireless communications standard developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
- Standards: 4G LTE is one of several competing 4G standards along with WiMax (IEEE 802.16) and Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB). Presently two standards are commercially used world-wide viz. LTE and Mobile WiMax standard.
- WiMax standard was first commercially in South Korea in 2007 and LTE standard was first used in Norway and Sweden in 2009.
- Speed: Designed to provide up to 10x speeds of 3G networks for mobile devices such as tablets, smartphones, netbooks and wireless hotspots etc. It can provide internet speed of at least 100 Mbit per second (Mbps) to 1 Gbps.
- Services: 4G technologies are designed to provide IP (Internet Protocol)-based voice, data and multimedia streaming at high speed.