Tech junkies from all over the world have been losing their minds since August 12 as India’s richest man announced his mega plans for fixed-line broadband and over-the-top (OTT) content called Jio GigaFiber. Mukesh Ambani announced this at Reliance Industries' 42nd annual general meeting in Mumbai.
“With Jio first-day-first-show, premium Jio Fiber customers will be able to watch movies in their living rooms the same day these movies are released in theatres,” said Ambani, setting off a worldwide speculation wave on Twitter.
"Jio Fiber plans will be priced between $10 (100mbps) to $100(1gbps)be per month to suit every budget and every need,” added Ambani.
World famous tech bloggers like Unbox Therapy’s Lewis George Hilsenteger and even the Wall Street Journal have claimed that this pricing is a tenth of the price compared to the US and Canada.
Ambani also set fear in India’s fiercely contested over-the-top (OTT) digital content market, when he said that Jio Fiber will give users access to the company’s OTT platform, Jio TV, along with the option to bundle subscriptions to third-party premium video applications.
India’s OTT industry currently has more than 35 major players, including multinational majors like Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video, and domestic ones like Hotstar, Voot (owned by Reliance), and Zee5.
Three OTT platforms: ALTBalaji, ErosNOW, and Netflix—are already sold bundled with Jio mobile phone connections. Jio could extend these partnerships to its fixed-line broadband venture, too.
Netflix ,however,has not yet officially made any comment to the Indian media on this story.
Many in the industry are speculating that, by offering bundled third-party OTT services, Jio may, in the long run, monopolize the whole content market through these revenue-sharing arrangements.
However, some experts are saying the reaction to the announcements might have been premature.
Reliance’s hyped, fixed-line optical fiber broadband service will be launched on September 5. It will also offer buyers lifetime free voice calls from a connected landline phone, high-speed broadband, and a free ultra high definition TV—all bundled in with one connection.
The Jio Set Top Box will also beat Google Stadia, a cloud based gaming service developed by Google, which is in development and scheduled to release only in the West next year.
On the other hand, Jio has partnered with major game development studios to bring the cloud based games to the Jio Set Top Box console before Google, on September 5.
The list of partner studios includes Microsoft Studios, Tencent, Gameloft, Riot Games and Milestone Games.
The box will be compatible with all popular gaming controllers, including Xbox or PS4 controllers.
The Indian company, which is claiming zero latency cloud based gaming services similar to Google, is yet to announce its pricing plan for these games.
With all these services packed into one single little Set Top Box setup, it is still hard to say how all of this will work together. But Jio claims it tested the project for the last couple of years, by providing these services for free to families in 16 thousand cities of India. So, it has troubleshot its back end and is ready to reach the 1.3 billion people of the country.
With all the speculations from tech experts and enthusiasts around the world, Jio GigaFiber might be the start of a new trillion dollar tech corporation.
