Reliance launches JioFiber, sets up new battle with Airtel Xstream

Reliance Industries’ telecom arm, Reliance Jio, announced the commercial launch of JioFiber, its fiber-to-the-home (FTH) service, across 1,600 cities and towns, targeting 20 million homes over the next 12 months. Analysts, however, feel the plans are not as disruptive as the telco's wireless ones, which it launched three years ago.  JioFiber has been running trials of the service since the past two years, for almost 500,000 customers. The plans range from Rs 699 to Rs 8,499 a month. Earlier this week, rival Bharti Airtel launched a new hardware —Xstream box and Xstream smart stick — and revamped the Airtel TV