Jio’s wired broadband splash interrupted by rains
NEWDELHI/MUMBAI: Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd’s fibre-to-thehome broadband service is looking to overcome the challenges of deploying fibre in the last-mile by piggybacking on the infrastructure of local cable operators to meet the Jio Gigafiber service’s launch later this year.
“The process of laying fibre outside has been stopped due to unfavourable weather as the government does not give permission to dig during rains,” a person aware of the development said requesting anonymity.
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said at the company’s 41st annual general meeting on 5 July that registration for Jio Gigafiber would start from 15 August. Rollout would be prioritized across localities with the highest number of registrations, he said. While the company did not officially announce a date for the commercial launch, it is likely by the end of this year,
reported on April 16.
“It does not look like the company will be able to go for a mass scale launch,” the person said. “Rights of way is a huge problem at municipality level. To overcome this, Jio has appointed one liasoning officer for every state to ensure the rollout is not delayed.”
At the shareholders meeting, Ambani said that Jio GigaFiber would build a home-andoffice connectivity platform connecting potentially 50 million homes. However, analysts said it may be challenging for RIL to meet its 50-million-user target due to last mile connectivity issues.