Reliance’s diktat to staff: Stop using mobile service of other operators

Reliance Industries, India’s largest conglomerate, has asked its 40,000-plus employees to stop using phones connections of existing operators, like Airtel and Vodafone, and instead switch to its own high-speed 4G Jio.

RIL has asked employees to port their existing phone numbers to Jio, a move that may open another front with the existing operators, who have been up in arms against the Mukesh Ambani-led firm’s prolonged beta testing.

“We are excited to announce yet another milestone towards greater excellence, where we will be switching our existing corporate connections to Jio,” RIL’s HR department wrote to all its employees.

It asked employees to use MNP to port their existing numbers to Jio and explained to them the step-by-step process.

Mobile number portability (MNP) enables telephone users to retain their number when changing from one carrier to other.

“Once you have submitted the required information, we will initiate the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) process with the existing operator. This will take around seven working days to complete,” the company HR said in the email.

So far, the company subscribed to corporate plans of all major operators including Airtel and Vodafone for the employees.

Reliance Jio test launched its services last December, but no dates for commercial launch has yet been announced. Initially, Jio SIM was available only to its employees, and later bundled with Reliance’s own Lyf-branded smartphones. Now, all Samsung and LG smartphones users could walk-in to a Reliance Digital store and procure a Jio SIM. It now has over 1.5 million users.

The company says it has created the world’s largest end- to-end all IP network and invested over Rs 1.34 lakh crore. Once launched, the services will cover over 18,000 towns and over 2 lakh villages across all the 22 service areas of the country.

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL)