Home broadband service of Reliance Jio Infocomm is going to get free to consumers for at least one month. Sources said the company is in the process of adopting an integrated billing system, which will take time to stabilize. This may delay the monetization of geofiber services.
Analysts say the delay may increase Mukesh Ambani’s telecom company’s 4G mobility business for income. The average revenue per user (ARPU) of Jio’s mobile services is declining. Sales and marketing staff of Jio are yet to be trained to sell different home broadband plans, due to which it may take more time to start billing the customers.
Reliance Jio confirms that Users will not have to pay any bill yet
The monthly plans of Geofiber are between Rs 699 to Rs 8,499. Their speeds range from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps. In addition to accessing the content platform, special services are provided for gaming, home network sharing, TV video calling and conferencing and device security. Jio’s fiber broadband service started a month ago.
However, so far customers have not been charged for it. Sources said that before the September 5 commercial launch, some five lakh users had signed up for the Geofiber trial. They are getting free service till now. A refundable security deposit of Rs 2,500 has been taken from new customers. They too have not had to pay for home broadband service.
“Geofiber Services will take some time to start billing. The company is trying to move away from the mobile services billing system to adopt a system in which the bills of 4G mobility and home broadband service of customers can be prepared simultaneously. Another source said that Geofiber’s customers ‘bill is being prepared, but they do not have to pay at the moment’. Jio did not respond to ET’s questions related to the news.
ET has spoken with Geofiber’s customers. These include people who participated in the home broadband trial two years ago. One of them said, ‘I have not been asked by any Jio executive to buy the plan. I am getting home broadband service for free. After the initial 100 GB of data is over, I can do separate free recharges of 40 GB for additional data.
‘ Last week, a consumer who took a connection of Jio on a deposit of 2,500, said that the message has come from the company that they are being given ‘100 Mbps speed access for 90 days under the preview offer’