Reliance Jio Infocomm’s (RJIL) proposed launch of 4G services is likely to be pushed to December, as Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is proving to be more challenging than initially thought.

The company, the wireless arm of India’s largest private company Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), launched the services in December 2015 for its employees.

“We had earlier considered it likely, based on industry feedback that RJIL would be ready to launch in September 2016 on a full scale. This was based on our general assessment of network readiness. This view still holds, though we additionally understand that VoLTE is proving to be more challenging than initially thought,” IIFL Institutional Equities said in a note.

Additionally, getting coverage with high frequency spectrum is also a challenge, according to its initial industry feedback, proving that getting 850MHz from RCom is vital for RJIL’s chances. The 850 MHz will give much more consistent coverage than either 1800 or 2300 MHz, it added.

In June 2015, RIL Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said that trials of RJIL would be upgraded into commercial operations by December, while the financial year 2016-17 will be the first full year of commercial operations for Jio.

“We feel that considering the likely timelines of the RCom-Sistema merger, and initial trial reports of JIO’ VoLTE offerings, a full scale 850M Hz supported launch by JIO is likely by December,” IIFL said, adding “our marker of when Jio launches moves from September to December.”

According to research firm, Bernstein, RIL is close to launching its telecom venture, as the company has already invested $15 billion to acquire licences and build infrastructure.

“While there is no public launch date as yet, we expect that Jio will start in the second half of 2016,” it said, adding, the near term addressable market is thought to be around 280 million subscribers (high-end 2G, 3G and wireless broadband users), growing at about 6-7 million every month each year.

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