Reliance Jio, launched with a bang, was expected to transform the current telecom scenario, with promises of high speed 4G at the most reasonable prices.
After more than a month, the prospects of Jio have dimmed with many issues cropping up against the carrier, lately.
For Mukesh Ambani, who manages Reliance Industries and a big part of India’s business, wants to make enough return on investment. The way the Jio business is progressing — a free model at present, does not the actual business strategy of Mukesh Ambani and team.
Incidentally, Mukesh Ambani and family waited for almost five years to test the Indian telecom industry and the dominance of three players — Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular.
Offering free services to 900 million plus Indian mobile subscribers is not the strategy of Reliance Jio. It wants revenue from its $20 billion investment and the agony the company suffered in the last five years of investment.
As soon as the carrier launched its lucrative 4G offers and free SIMs, almost all major carriers were under pressure to cut down and match with its rates.
Only a week after the launch, there were reports of SIMs being not available, even after waiting in long queues and of retailers charging random amounts for it.
Also, long lag time was observed for SIM activation and verification, taking up to 20 days or more in some cases. Finding 4G compatible phones and configuration of 4G smartphones were the other major issues.
At the launch, RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani had said that Jio SIM card activations will take no longer than 15 minutes or so using e-KYC facility.
But this facility was found to be missing at many retail outlets of the carrier for about 15 days since the launch.
As the users increased, the 4G speed offered by the carrier has also plummeted alongside many connection issues being reported.
Jio began with claims of offering up to 135 GB 4G data speeds on an average, but recent reports from TRAI and Ookla have said the carrier has not met with expectations.
Ookla has said that even the top 10 percent of tests have averaged out only at 17.77 Mbps in September.
The reports added that the average 4G speed has fallen by almost 23 percent month-over-month, from 11.31 Mbps to 8.77 Mbps, on summing up about 8 million tests.
To add to its plight, there is also the voice call drops or the PoI issue and the number portability or MNP issue.
Voice call related services, despite being free for lifetime on Jio, have disappointed many users who have added that it has led to Reliance Jio being used as a secondary SIM.
Reliance has itself acknowledged 16 million call drops on its network to current leader Airtel alone, per day.
Reliance puts the blame on major rival carriers pointing out that it has not been provided the legally required amount of interconnect points or the specific infrastructure, leading to call drops.
The carriers on the other hand have reiterated that, the sudden launch of RJio in place of phased launches has created enormous traffic and inadequate time to free up existing points of interconnection, is the main cause for the same.
Jio recently claimed that it has won 16 million subscribers within 26 days of commercial launch, setting a world record.
As all the added users are under the Welcome Offer, the significance of the additions have to be slashed.
The question is, in view of the current challenges seen on an RJio connection, will users be willing to continue the services once it starts to cost them money.
Jio has time and again assured its users on working to solve the grievances, but the current struggle between the pan-India 4G network and other operators does not seem to end any time soon.
In its quarterly result announcement, Reliance Jio said that it may extend the period of free services in case its subscribers are not able to get adequate experience of seamless connectivity across network, due to interconnection congestion and the quality of service parameters, are not as per the benchmarks desired by its management.
Jio also added that over 75 calls are failing out of every 100 call attempts on the networks of some operators, resulting in serious QoS concerns.
Jio also recently acquired the 269.2 MHz (UL+DL) spectrum to enhance its pan-India spectrum across all 22 service areas in October 2016, for a charge of Rs 13,672 crore for 20 years.
Jio had revealed plans to achieve a 100 million user base in the fastest possible time, but till date it has come out as being unprepared for the hordes of customers joining it.
On this note, the effect of Jio will withstand on the Indian telecom market, if and only if, the issues retaining in the network are corrected effectively.
Else, the trend of using Jio as a secondary SIM may increase along-with subscriptions even risking sudden fall after the services begin to be charged.
Vina Krishnan
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