RIL asks staff to stop using mobile service of other operators

New Delhi, Aug 22 (PTI) Reliance Industries, India’slargest conglomerate, has asked its 40,000-plus employees tostop using phones connections of existing operators, likeAirtel and Vodafone, and instead switch to its own high-speed4G Jio. RIL has asked employees to port their existing phonenumbers to Jio, a move that may open another front with theexisting operators, who have been up in arms against theMukesh Ambani-led firm’s prolonged beta testing. "We are excited to announce yet another milestone towardsgreater excellence, where we will be switching our existingcorporate connections to Jio," RIL’s HR department wrote toall its employees. It asked employees to use MNP to port their existingnumbers to Jio and explained to them the step-by-step process. Mobile number portability (MNP) enables telephone users toretain their number when changing from one carrier to other. "Once you have submitted the required information, we willinitiate the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) process with theexisting operator. This will take around seven working days tocomplete," the company HR said in the email. So far, the company subscribed to corporate plans of allmajor operators including Airtel and Vodafone for theemployees. Reliance Jio test launched its services last December, butno dates for commercial launch has yet been announced.Initially, Jio SIM was available only to its employees, andlater bundled with Reliance’s own Lyf-branded smartphones.Now, all Samsung and LG smartphones users could walk-in to aReliance 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 andover 2 lakh villages across all the 22 service areas of thecountry. PTI ANZABK