Cable television players believe that Jio GigaFiber will bring heavy but healthy competition

With a goal of reaching 50 million homes in 1100 cities across a fixed broadband service, Reliance Jio certainly has big plans in the coming months to disrupt the television industry by cable. On July 5, at the 41st AGM of Reliance Industries Limited, Mukesh D Ambani announced the launch of Jio Giga Fiber, a high speed broadband fixed broadband service, for individuals and businesses, and registration will begin August 15, 2018 [19659004] Rival companies like Airtel and MTNL are now preparing for fierce competition. As a result, Bharti Airtel has already cut prices for broadband services and even offers customers unlimited data. In Hyderabad, Airtel has removed the limits of its Fair Use Policy (FUP) for its broadband customers, which means that they are getting unlimited data. Until now, most broadband packages provided unlimited data to users, but with a certain ceiling.

Mahanagar Phone Nigam Limited (MTNL) now offers a free 3G connection and data up to 10GB with its broadband connection.

Cable industry actors admit that this will lead to heavy but healthy competition in the field. In addition, this will bring real value to players who are currently undervalued. "Jio was in the wireless space earlier, and this has always been the priority area in the Indian market while cable broadband service has been unclear on both the consumer and investor side", said Kerala The CEO of Communicators Cable Ltd. (KCCL), Shaji Mathews. "A company like Reliance, considering this as a priority area, makes cable broadband and cable TV important, which is good for the industry. The government and financial institutions have long neglected this sector," he added. .

believes that Reliance Jio has been successful in increasing consumer appetite for data. "Now, the result will be that people will switch to wired broadband service (Jio GigaFiber), which will give them much higher data than wireless.We see more video consumption occur. is Jio's competition with the existing MSOs, I think the existing players have a length ahead because of the fiber already laid across the length and breadth of the country.I foresee a serious growth for the cable line. "

Another senior media executive believes the challenge is for existing MSOs with broadband services because the Jio GigaFiber configuration box offers broadband as well as cable TV services to consumers. "They're talking about a Gigabit fiber, which is obviously a huge amount of bandwidth coming to your house.The challenge for MSOs is how they're going to look at cross-selling.Each MSO has a broadband service they are actually selling and going to their existing customers and bundling their broadband service with cable TV, where you will see the challenge in the next three to four months. "

Another MSO player, who did not want to be named, said that Jio would enter the space, which would result in strong competition in broadband services, but linear TV will have its own badets. Jio GigaFiber will increase brand awareness and broadband consumption will increase. The bar will be raised and existing players will have to do a lot more to match the competition. The new Jio offer will also increase opportunities in this space and bring investors' attention back to the sector. "
Jio GigaFibre will deliver ultra-high definition entertainment on widescreen TVs, multi-party videoconferencing from trade shows, voice-activated virtual badistants, virtual reality gaming, digital shopping and immersive experiences, the new service will offer, among other things, a router, a set-top box and a landline

Beta testing of the new service began in some locations in six cities – Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Ahmedabad, Jamnagar, Surat and Vadodara in May 2017.