There was a lot of buzz surrounding Reliance Jio Infocomm, the newest entrant in India's mobile market, throughout the week. On Tuesday, local publications announced that Sandip Das will be stepping down as MD to join the company's retail arm, Reliance Retail. Live Mint reported that Sandip Das, one of the two managing directors of Reliance Jio, has quit his position in the telecom company and has moved to a mentorship role in Reliance Retail, leaving Sanjay Mashruwala to lead the company. It was reported that Sandip Das will be heading Reliance Retail to build an LTE device ecosystem and also to develop the sales and distribution channels including its retail store network.
At the same time, IndianTelevision reported this week that a Reliance Jio subsidiary, Reliance Jio Media has applied for a pan India cable television multi system operator (MSO) license, citing confirmation received by the company from an official from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry. The move by Reliance Jio, which already has the license for pan-India Broadband Wireless Access spectrum for 4G services, is expected to see the mobile operator making inroads into the broadcasting sector. The MSO licence will enable Reliance, as a group, to position itself as a quadruple-play provider - offering the entire suite of communication services on 4G, fiber broadband and cable.
These events follow the soft-launch of Reliance Jio's 4G LTE WiFi service which also took place this week. The 4G LTE WiFi service, Jionet which was launched at the Gujarat Global Trade Center in Gandhinagar saw the deployment of about 250 4G LTE WiFi routers to provide connectivity to the internet with speeds of at least 10 Mbps, according to DeshGujarat.com. The soft-launch is part of Reliance Jio's 4G service rollout across the country, expected to commence service in most telecom circles by March 2015.
