Considering Odisha government’s initiative to convert Bhubaneswar into ‘Smart City’, Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) has unveiled 4G Wi-Fi internet in the city. Four locations -- Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) campus, Gopabandhu Chowk, Governor House Road and Surya Nagar -- covering popular areas like Reliance Fresh Retail outlet, Gopabandhu market complex and ICICI Bank are the locations that received 4G.
The service is offered free to a fair limit till the official launch. "High speed data connectivity is one of the foundations on which future prosperity of cities and nations will be built. We are proud to be associated with the government's Smart City initiative,” said a Reliance spokesperson.
“By deploying Jionet Wi-Fi services at select locations in Bhubaneswar, we want people to sample the digital ecosystem we are building consisting of high speed data networks, specially designed apps and rich content and understand how it can enrich their lives," he added.
Before Jio’s data services come to market, as early as by mid-September 2015, RIL will launch TDD-LTE handsets (mostly, Android smartphones) for everyone; ranging from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 25,000. It will have it’s own branding – ReConnect. You can already see products from this brand at Reliance Digital stores.
RIL has received licenses to set up a ‘Payments Bank‘ along with Airtel, Vodafone, PayTM, Aditya Birla Group (Idea Cellular), Tech Mahindra, India Post and others. Many financial experts believes payment banks approval by Reserve Bank of India will be a game changer in Indian economics – a bigger storm than in 1990s when private banks were allowed to do business. Jio has already rolled out an app for such purpose – Jio Money (available to Jio Chat users, as of now) that makes the transaction cashless, can transform a smartphone into a virtual ATM and can reach the last miles via wireless route.
The union cabinet has recently granted operators permission to share spectrum with one another provided both operators have spectrum in the same circle in the same frequency band. Taking advantage of this provision the Ambani brothers have decided to ink a deal to share the spectrum they possess in 800 MHz band in the 10 circles where both operators have spectrum.
There are 27 access points across the locations and 1000 users can simultaneously connect to the service at a time. Before the formal launch, an official feedback will be collected from the people, which will be used to enhance the service.
