Reliance Com takes internet to rural India; launches new plans

The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group owned Reliance Communications has launched three novel initiatives, namely BharatNet plan, Grameen VAS & M2M (machine to machine) solutions, aimed at increasing mobile telecom and internet penetration across rural India, including a high-speed wireless internet service.

''The Indian telecom wireless rural subscriber base is now over 125 million. The next wave of telecom growth is emerging from rural India,'' RCom president (wireless) S P Shukla said.

''With the rural base expected to double in the next few years, RCom is looking at tapping the potential of this exponential growth through innovative and ground-breaking service offerings and tariffs,'' he added.

BharatNet plan is a variant of Reliance NetConnect high-speed wireless internet service, specifically designed for the rural and sub-urban markets. It offers speeds of approximately 153 Kbps, which is 4 to 8 times the current dial-up speed of the wire-line services.

The plan will be offered in over 20,000 rural locations across India for just Rs98 per week with downloads up to 350MB.

Meanwhile, the Grameen VAS services, priced at Rs15 per month, will cater to the specific local needs of rural mobile consumers in over 500,000 Indian villages. It would cover several specialised services including mandi bhav, agriculture & animal husbandry updates, weather forecast, local info, and news, all in multiple Indian languages.