Shortly UK’s Vodafone may reveal converged fast broadband solutions in India to clash Reliance Jio Infocomm through bundling wired home broadband packs with 3G/4G mobile services, utilizing the pre-set broadband resources of YOU Broadband, an A-category Internet Service Provider (ISP) which it acquired about a year back.
A reliable source told ET, "Vodafone’s converged broadband solutions business model, combining fixed-line and mobile services is popular in key international markets such as the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands, and may soon be replicated in India by leveraging subsidiary YOU’s resources, amid surging data consumption levels."
Reportedly, Vodafone India had purchased Mumbai-based YOU Broadband for Rs 400 crore from TRG Capital.
Vodafone’s focus on high-speed pre-set broadband at 100 Mbps along with mobile services comes at a time when opponent Reliance Jio is allegedly running trials of its ultra-fast fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services in prominent data markets such as Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Navi Mumbai at the forefront of full-scale commercial launch in coming days. As indicated by the reports, the 4G contestant is tipped to bundle TV services with home broadband to tap into more than 100 million homes, comprising those in tier II and II categories.
During previous October, Mukesh Ambani said that optical fibre and pre-set line broadband would be the subsequent monetization open-door for Jio.
Further, responding to ET’s queries, a Vodafone India spokesperson said that, "The addition of YOU Broadband positions us well to serve the growing demand for high-speed connectivity at home and perfectly complements Vodafone’s own nationwide data smart mobile network." Consolidating YOU Broadband’s assets, he stated, would empower Vodafone India to "offer customers cutting-edge internet speeds and consistent experience for enabling seamless HD video streaming and browsing across multiple devices simultaneously".
YOU Broadband, an entirely owned unit of Vodafone India, has more than 3,000 km of optic fibre cable and 17,000 km o last-mile coaxial wires to house over 18 prominent data consuming markets, including Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Nagpur, Pune, and Coimbatore.
This move of Vodafone India to ring in converged broadband solutions retain data customers comes when the telecom industry dealing with price-war triggered by Jio’s destructive entry in the month of September 2016, is in the throes of a furious value war activated by Jio's problematic passage in September 2016, which has likewise provoked consolidation in the present market.
In the midst of Vodafone India’s successive growth over past three years, the industry experts anticipate that the company to utilize the YOU’s high-speed wired broadband network to go into homes connects with small and medium enterprises and start-ups.
Vodafone India did not comment on ET’s query related to the brand by which Vodafone will offer its pre-set broadband services. Vodafone India and Cellular India are collaborating their businesses to build the country’s biggest phone company by serving more than 400 million customers.
According to the industry experts, in spite of the total wealth of data offers at lower tariffs on mobile phones following Jio’s entry, the demand for high-speed data in places, for example, houses, small enterprises, education institutes, and offices makes the wired broadband likewise significant in present days.