India has the highest data usage per smartphone • Hacker News Board

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#91

Post by dman » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

LyndsySimon wrote: post #85

Ugh. I live in Arkansas, and my AT&T bill this month is $410. Granted, about $150 of that are payment plans for devices, but still. The base rate plan is $110, and there's a $20-30 per line fee for four separate lines. I have an iPad Pro 11" LTE and an iPhone X, my wife has an S10+, and I handed down my 6th Gen iPad LTE to my 10-year-old. It's a lot more than "needed", and our aggregate data usage is 30+ GB/month, bu…

Why dont you use tethering and use the connection from your phone on your ipad?

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#92

Post by alberto_ol » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

totaldude87 wrote: post #3

Jio revolution is the main reason for this, after Jio almost every other vendor is giving you 30Gb(1Gb per day) for $5-6 , no wonder, there is a %30-40 utilization of data. Majority of this utilization would be on Streaming, Torrent downloads etc etc, Also to note that , many of the calls made in India are VOLTE calls..

in Italy I pay 8 Euros for 50GByte per month

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#93

Post by Joakal » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

harias wrote: post #7

For 6 dollars 50 cents, you get 1.5 GB/day for 91 days. Data-plans on offer: https://www.jio.com/en-in/4g-plans And they manage to remain profitable (only-telco in India that reported profit this quarter) : https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/relian...

Australia: 3 GB for 30 days $15 AUD or 15 GB for 1 year $99 AUD

https://www.aldimobile.com.au/plans/data-packs/

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#94

Post by sandGorgon » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

and we arent even close to peaking.

The biggest telcos in India havent even started content plays. Netflix just entered India.

And we still have HALF A BILLION people not on the internet. This is in an environment with constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to privacy (that cannot be reversed by the govt), a govt run mobile payments infrastructure that is literally a free Stripe+Paypal+Venmo+Alipay and perhaps the world's largest pool of software developers.

There are multiple large/successful venture funded startups in India started and run by non-citizen expatriates (incl women). English is pretty much the language of business and India-US/India-EU have excellent non-double taxation laws.

Healthcare is dirt cheap and very good.

Its a brilliant time to do a startup here.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#95

Post by jeswin » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 3:00 PM UTC

catchmeifyoucan wrote: post #90

I'm from India. I can confirm this. It's because unlimited LTE data costs about rs700 per month or 10 dollars. It can be spotty at times - but it works. Mobile is by far the most used form factor. Search for "Jio" on your app store and you'll see a variety of apps like JioTV, JioCinema, JioNews etc.. That means free news, live tv and movies all for the price of a cell phone subscription. Jio is the name of the servic…

Actually, most plans are way cheaper than that. Most people I know are on a $9 or $10 prepaid plan for three months of unlimited calls, messages and 2GB/day. It kinda covers most typical video usage.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#96

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 3:06 PM UTC

dzhiurgis wrote: post #24

Can someone explain why in countries with established infrastructure, automation and cheaper capital cost (albeit higher labor cost) the internet cost is around 10-20x more than in India? Additionally, it's often ~5x slower than in 2nd world countries...

[deleted]

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#97

Post by Scoundreller » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 3:06 PM UTC

H8crilA wrote: post #31

taneq wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy crap, why am I paying $35/mo for 500mb? >.<

To counter-act this simply position yourself on the other end of American ridiculous data prices: buy $AMT, $SBAC. Those are cell tower REITs. They're up >900% and >2000% since the 2009 crisis.

They’re up because they’re leveraged to the hills.

Investing in them is a play on interest rates more than anything.

Lots of télécoms came out like bandits by selling their infrastructure at very high valuations.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#98

Post by inapis » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 3:06 PM UTC

catchmeifyoucan wrote: post #90

I'm from India. I can confirm this. It's because unlimited LTE data costs about rs700 per month or 10 dollars. It can be spotty at times - but it works. Mobile is by far the most used form factor. Search for "Jio" on your app store and you'll see a variety of apps like JioTV, JioCinema, JioNews etc.. That means free news, live tv and movies all for the price of a cell phone subscription. Jio is the name of the servic…

> You could also imagine why it might be hard for Netflix, Spotify and Prime movies to compete in India

Till a certain extent. Netflix, Prime Videos, Hotstar etc have much more variety and higher quality and some are VERY AFFORDABLE. Prime videos and Hotstar (HBO, Game of thrones, Veep, Silicon Valley like shows) can be had for $14 USD per year EACH. So upwardly mobile Indians can subscribe to multiple OTT streaming services (I do Netflix, Hostart, Primve Video + Apple Music). For the price of one Spotify sub in US, you can subscribe to 5-7 music streaming services in India.

For the rest, Indian creators on YouTube have pretty much surpassed every big name streaming company. TVF, Timeliners etc have created content which resonates with 18-35 year olds on an emotional level. Netflix et al. will never have that emotional connect so easily.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#99

Post by rohan1024 » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 3:06 PM UTC

sandGorgon wrote: post #94

and we arent even close to peaking. The biggest telcos in India havent even started content plays. Netflix just entered India. And we still have HALF A BILLION people not on the internet. This is in an environment with constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to privacy (that cannot be reversed by the govt), a govt run mobile payments infrastructure that is literally a free Stripe+Paypal+Venmo+Alipay and perhap…

> Netflix just entered India

Checkout https://www.justwatch.com/in to see the content providers in India. Last time I checked we had less streaming services than Germany!

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#100

Post by jxramos » Fri, Jun 21, 2019, 3:12 PM UTC

sandGorgon wrote: post #94

and we arent even close to peaking. The biggest telcos in India havent even started content plays. Netflix just entered India. And we still have HALF A BILLION people not on the internet. This is in an environment with constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to privacy (that cannot be reversed by the govt), a govt run mobile payments infrastructure that is literally a free Stripe+Paypal+Venmo+Alipay and perhap…

I thought I recall hearing someone say that cellphone plans and rates are much more reasonable there. That it's not uncommon for companies to actually compete to lower prices. Is that true?