Three years after elbowing into the wireless phone marketwith free calls and data, billionaire Mukesh Ambani is back at it. This time,Asia’s richest man is handing out TVs to hook users on movies and entertainmentshows via internet. The tycoon is wedging into a business teeming with playersfrom rival mobile carriers to Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

Ambani’s JioFiber broadband service, scheduled to startThursday across India, comes with a high-definition television and set-topboxes at no charge for annual lifetime subscribers. The offer by Reliance JioInfocomm Ltd., the tycoon’s wireless powerhouse, includes subscriptions to mostpremium streaming services with prices starting from Rs 700 a month.

The fiber-TV salvo comes days after Jio formally swept intothe No. 1 spot for wireless services after free calls and cheap data luredhundreds of millions of subscribers and left rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd. andVodafone Idea Ltd. struggling under mounting debt. Airtel, backed by tycoonSunil Mittal, and billionaire Kumar Mangalam Birla’s Idea are also trying tolure users by offering access to TV and movie content.

Telecom carriers around the world are adding entertainmentcontent to their offerings as a way to compete for users and add revenue,especially in markets where the number of mobile subscriptions has reachedsaturation. In India, video-on-demand growth itself is explosive, according toresearcher Boston Consulting Group.

The market could leap to $5 billion by 2023 from $500million last year, BCG estimates. The boom has set Bollywood production houses,carriers and streaming services racing to feed demand for TV shows and moviesand compete for users. Paying subscribers will probably rise to as many as 50million, while user of advertising-supported video-on-demand will reach 600million, BCG predicts.

To gain the upper hand in the streaming business againstwell-funded competitors like Netflix, Amazon.com and Walt Disney Co.’s Hotstar,Jio will need to go beyond just offering cheaper access via bundled services,said Shailesh Kapoor, founder and chief executive officer at Mumbai-basedconsultancy Ormax Media Pvt.

So far, the telecommunications company has relied onalliances with TV and film producers to provide content for its servicebundles. JioFiber will also include movies that can be seen by subscribers onthe same day they debut in cinemas, Ambani said in a speech laying out the planon Aug. 12. That part of the service won’t start until the middle of next year,he said.