Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), said that Punjab will be the first state in India to have 100% mobile broadband coverage from Reliance Jio Infocomm, which is preparing to roll out commercial 4G services in the next financial year. Ambani said that the company earlier committed to invest Rs 2,000 crore, but has already invested over Rs 3,900 crore in Punjab.
"We will commit to all the additional resources it takes so that Punjab will be the first state in India where every single village which will be covered with mobile broadband connectivity," Ambani said at the investor's summit in Mohali, Punjab on Wednesday.
Ambani however didn’t provide the timeline by which all of the state's villages will be connected with 4G services. Bharti Airtel, the country’s top telecom carrier, has already launched high-speed 4G services in Punjab. Reliance Industries has invested Rs 92,000 crore in its ambitious telecom venture so far, and has substantially completed the network rollout across the country. Jio, which holds a pan-India unified licence for all net-based services, including voice and data, recently said that the initial test results on the network were positive, and the company’s roll out plans are now in full swing.
Jio expects to ramp up its beta program over the next few weeks to further optimise the network, prior to commercial launch of operations. RIL recently said that it will start selling 4G-enabled devices in the market from next month, closer to Diwali, under the brand name 'Lyf' to support Reliance Jio.
