Reliance to launch Jio for its employees on December 27

Reliance will launch Jio, pan-India 4G service, for its employees on December 27, marking Dhirubhai Ambani's birth anniversary.

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and music composer A R Rahman are expected to perform at the event. Mukesh Ambani will unveil the company's much-awaited fourth generation mobile service at Reliance Corporate Park in Navi Mumbai. In an invitation to all Reliance employees, Mukesh and Nita Ambani wrote: "This year we want to commemorate this momentous occasion and celebrate Dhirubhai's entrepreneurial spirit and innovative genius by launching our transformatiol digital initiative - Jio. We are extremely proud of each and every colleague at Reliance, who has worked very hard for the past few years and has supported the roll out of this initiative - to convert our dream of a Digital India into a reality."

The consumers, however, will have to wait a little longer as the company tests its network before rolling out the commercial service. The company's 4G handsets, under the brand name Lyf, will hit the stores around the same time.

The commercial launch is expected in March or April next year. Reliance Jio started beta testing its network a few weeks back.

Analysts at Credit Suisse, who have tested the service, said, "R-Jio recently started beta-testing its 4G network by issuing connections to employees/friends. We tried out the network in and around Mumbai. Overall, the R-Jio network is turning out to be as strong a threat to incumbents as we had feared." Next focus would be on pricing and marketing. We see the market being surprised negatively on telco stocks."