The wireless 4G services are just the beginning for Jio. The company has bigger plans. And part of those plans is its upcoming Fibre To The Home (FTTH) service. In November the company had said that it would aim to "disrupt" the broadband market soon. Now it has started rolling out the Jio Fibre in Mumbai. The work -- finishing the cable installation etc -- for the Jio Fibre started in November and December. Now there are some buildings in Mumbai where people can subscribe to the service.
One such building, India Today Tech learns, is Rahul Building on Walkeshwar Road. Rushabh Vora, a resident at that building, says that Jio has set up the Jio Fibre connectivity inside the building and that people are already using it. For the first three months the service is free. Although Jio had earlier claimed that it is hoping to deliver speeds of up to 1gbps with its FTTH service so far it seems that users are getting somewhere between 70mbps to 100mbps. Although it is possible that right now the service is in the early stages and Jio may ramp up the speed in the coming days.
The Walkeshwar Road is not the only area that has got the Jio Fibre. It has also been rolled out in Nepeansea Road in Mumbai. For Jio, which is a Reliance company, rollout of FTTH may turn out to be relatively easier compared to any other new internet service provider. The company already has an extensive backbone of the fibre network across India.
As noted earlier, currently the Jio Fibre has been offered for free to users. But there is one-time charge of Rs 4500 for the router that Jio is installing in the homes of its users. The free service, unless Jio changes its plan, will remain for free for three months after which users will have to subscribe to a plan. Currently, details of the plans and their pricing are not known.
However, Jio is not the only company that is hoping to ramp up the FTTH service in India. Almost all major internet service providers, as well as startups like ACT, are offering new FTTH plans, although all of them are limited to select areas. Jio's arch-rival Airtel too is trying to expand its FTTH services. In October last year, the company used a technology that it called V Fibre to roll out new FTTH plans in Chennai. It promised 100mbps speed to V Fibre subscribers and offered them three months of free service as part of a promotion, similar to what Jio is providing consumers.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/techno...up-to-100mbps-free-for-3-months/1/854907.html
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