Going all out to take on the telecom services market in India in a big way and coming close on the heels of Mukesh Ambani's last week announcement of the timeline for roll out of its 4G services by mid-2015, Reliance Jio Infocomm - the telecom arm of RIl, is learnt to be readying to test low cost lTE enabled smartphones which could be priced at record low level as much as Rs6,000 - 7,200 per set.
This development is likely to ruffle feathers of other telecom operators as there was general expectation of a high cost of the instrument (being lTE enabled) would impede Reliance Jio's big-bang entry into the market. Observers had also written off any major impact of the player in the telecom services market as the lTE technology is relatively new technology in India and has a less developed ecosystem as well as infrastructure.
The development also follows with the recent induction of former Managing Director of BlackBerry Sunil Dutt shifting to Reliance Jio as head of manufacturing devices. Sunil Dutt has earlier been involved with other leading IT and handset manufacturers like Samsung, Nokia and Hewllet Packard.
The company is learnt to be in touch with various leading phone manufacturers and vendors like Samsung, TCl and lG, as per industry sources. However, the sets are expected to be 'bundled' with the services offered by the company when the company starts its services which has to be latest by mid 2015 as per the auction terms and conditions of the DoT. "However, the handsets would also have to be compatible with 2G, 3G and 4G services as Reliance Jio will be operating in all these bandwidths, sources said. When contacted the company, however, failed to respond.
Keenly watched by other market players in the telecom market, there is a general fear that the country's biggest and most cash rich corporate would upset the telecom service operators' arithmetic by launching cheaper services and would lead to a big upheaval in the operations of capital intensive and debt ridden Indian telecom companies.
Mukesh Ambani RIl Chairman and Managing Director last week pulled out all stops and said that the company had earmarked Rs70,000 crore in its telecom services venture in the country which is expected to cover 90 per cent of the country's urban landscape.
RIl's telecom arm Reliance Jio Infocomm, which is the only company to have nationwide permits for 4G services, will start rolling out broadband services in the coming months. It will begin with field trials in August and commercial launch in 2015, Ambani said while addressing the recently held 40th annual general meeting of RIl.