After roiling telcos, JIO seen taking on DTH companies

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, April 3

Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio is seen preparing to take on the country's cable television and Direct to Home (DTH) industry with its Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services.

Images of JIO-branded set-top boxes that can be directly plugged onto a broadband Internet cable or modem have been released on social media. According to information put out by tech bloggers in sites like CandyTech and DTH Forum, an RJ-45 port would enable the set-top-box to be connected to a modem. In addition the set-top-box comes with an Ethernet port in addition to the standard cable connector port, HDMI port, USB port along with audio and video output ports.

Reliance JIO is already testing fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband in several neighbourhoods of Mumbai and is expected to roll out services in several cities once the management is through with the launch of the mobile 4G business, according to analysts here.

JIO has already tied up with audio-visual content provider, Hotstar, for providing footage to its mobile phone subscribers. Analysts expect the company to tie up with Amazon Prime and Netflix, which feature international cinema specially produced for them.

According to tech-bloggers who accessed the Reliance JIO set-top boxes, the company is planning to provide free subscription to more than 300 channels for several months before levying subscription charges.

Officials of Reliance Industries have refused to comment on the matter.