A “backup broadband” plan was announced by Reliance Jio for homes with shaky WiFi connections. Plans start at 198 per month (before GST) and offer daily top-ups or a flat monthly fee to increase bandwidth beyond the default 10 Mbps. Jio is getting ready for the Indian Premier League when the move is made; the firm has the options to stream the cricket competition in India.
The monthly rental is an aggressive move that may unnerve established operators, despite the fact that the plans come with a mandatory installation fee of Rs 500 plus GST; Since the launch of Jio’s mobile network, fixed-line broadband prices have been falling across the board as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) struggle to manage tightening economic conditions.
Instead of completely replacing the connections of established ISPs, the company is promoting the backup broadband plans as an additional service for existing providers. The company confirmed that users can upgrade the backup plan to a full connection, giving the provider a chance to upsell customers.
The most recent month for which subscription data has been made available by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is December 2022, when Jio added 2.92 lakh home connections. Bharti Airtel added almost twice as much during the same time period. India is the country’s largest wired broadband provider, trailing only BSNL and Airtel, which each control a quarter of the market, with 27.45 million home broadband connections, 30.6% of which are Jio subscriptions.
