Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance Industries plans to offer cheap high-speed broadband services based on a 4G network deployment by the end of 2012 , reports The Economic Times. The report cites two people familiar with the development to inform that RIL will offer tablets at a subsidized price of Rs 3,500 and will bundle data plans for as low as Rs 10 per GB. However, the company did not commit a launch date and said that it was still in the planning phase. however, in an e-mail reply to the publication, it did say that its services will be supported by a wide variety of devices from multiple vendors. Reliance Industries had acquired 95% stake in Infotel Broadband services, after it won pan-India BWA spectrum in all 22 circles, to enter the wireless broadband space. RIL had said that it intends to deploy WiMAX, and then graduate services to LTE when it matures in two years. It had plans to invest Rs. 18,000-20,000 crore to roll out services. Infotel had acquired 4G spectrum for pan-India for Rs 12,847.77 crore. Is Rs 10/GB Viable? Tariff war in data? Assuming that the report is accurate, the tariffs will certainly hit other telcos banking on 3G services, the hardest. Airtel which had paid Rs 12,295 crores for acquiring 3G spectrum in 13 circles offers 1200 MB of data use at Rs 450, under a special promotional double benefit plan. So, essentially the subscriber pays Rs 384 for 1GB. Even the state owned MTNL offers 1GB…
