RIL asks staff to port numbers to Rel Jio

NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries, India’s largest conglomerate, has asked its 40,000-plus employees to stop using phones connections of existing operators, such as Airtel and Vodafone, and instead switch to its own high-speed 4G connection, Reliance 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 mobile number portability (MNP) to port their existing numbers to Jio and explained to them the step-by-step process. MNP enables telephone users to retain their number when changing service providers.

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 have yet been announced. Initially, Jio SIM was available only to its employees, and later bundled with Reliance’s own Lyfbranded smartphones. Now, all Samsung and LG smartphones users can walk-in to a Reliance Digital store and get a Jio SIM.

It now has over 1.5 million users. In comparison market leader Bharti Airtel has around 250 million subscribers in the country.