The much awaited JioFibre broadband plans are out. Details are available on the Company website.

The plans range from Rs 699/ month to Rs 8,499/ month with minimum speed of 100 mbps going all the way upto 1GBPS. Along with the broadband internet services, Jio offers its customers multiple other value added services – landline telephone, anti-virus security, gaming, TV video conferencing, virtual realty (VR), first day movies (future planned), 4k tv box and free speakers/ TV sets.

The higher the price you pay the more you get. Likewise, if you opt for annual plans, you get discounts and free speakers/ TVs.

My reaction as a customer

The offering is nice but not disruptive in true sense. The pricing is comparable to competition and doesn’t undercut them significantly.

If I am a completely new customer, Jiofiber is a no brainer…..

but if I am already using other services (Airtel or Vovinet in my case), I would be trying to weigh the pros and cons. Some of the points that I would be looking to seek clarity upon – 

• Customer service quality of Jiofiber.
• Consistency of the promised speed.
• Wiring requirements for Jio set-up.
• Pricing for DTH services (I couldn’t figure this out based on the provided details – it seems that Jio would provide the 4K DTH box but the aforesaid plan charges doesn’t include DTH monthly costs, which would be a function of chosen channels like in the case of Tata Sky).

Jiofiber surely seems to be an interesting offering and I look forward to get more details before I make a switch. Parallelly, I continue to look at Airtel equally excitingly that seems to be making interesting moves as well. Recently, they launched Airtel Xstream that seems to be promising. 

I had written a detailed post on this: Reliance AGM – Points not be missed amid excitement

I continue to be positively inclined towards Reliance stock – especially because of significant broadband under penetration levels in India. However, I continue to keep my guards open on some points that I had highlighted in the previous note.

As a stock market investor, Jiofiber pricing means the following to me – 

1. Pricing is not very aggressive – hence the financial burden on the Company, if any, should be limited. On the contrary, if demand is favorable, it might start contributing towards Reliance’s bottomline. This is good news for Reliance’s profitability, debt and maybe future strategic investments into Reliance Retail and Jio.
2. First Jio mobile and now Jiofiber pricing is making me believe that Indian telecom sector might be returning towards normalcy and days of significant price wars are over. I would therefore also keep a keen eye on some of Reliance’s competition especially Airtel.

Disclaimer: The above are my personal opinions and not any recommendation. The reader should do his independent research before making any stock investment.