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India has the highest data usage per smartphone

thehindu.com

131–140 of 262 posts

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#131

Americans are going to be livid when they learn how cheap data plans are in India. The reason this works is free market, unlike the US where the likes of Comcast have monopoly in the regions they operate. Hasan Minhaj did a show this week on Netflix, you should watch it - he explains pretty well how horrible Comcast like companies are.

Free market doesn't exists and Economic liberalism is a lie. It's all about the circumstances leading to the consumption of some products of services.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#133

Jio has set the entire market on fire. I remember 3 Years back I was paying Rs. 1000/month @ 1Mbps unlimited to my local broadband service provider. Today the same service provider is offering me unlimited data @ 50Mbps without change in cost! Edit: Also, the entire network is ipv6 enabled from the beginning. India went from white to green within months on ipv6 graph at https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.…

How much of the 50mbps do you get though? Contention is one of the names of a high speed internet connection if the company doesn’t invest enough in the backend. Or to put it another way, would you stream 4K video with it?

I have a 250 Mbps home connection and its 1:1. 4K is easily stream able, that too is via local ISP. They changed their plans in last 2 years owing to the change Jio brought. The only challenge is, that services are a bit spotty (in case of a fiber cut/ unplanned maintenance et al), but again, the speed and throughput more than makes up for it.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#134

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…

I live in Toronto, but managed to get an US AT&T plan because prices are so much better. I pay $30 USD for 8GB that carries over month-to-month. I outright bought my Pixel 2 though, second hand.

Bit lower than your $410, but it sounds like you have multiple plans, always buying very high-end new hardware. There's a point where you have to accept that this is an expensive hobby or luxury item. You chose to get all these devices.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#135

This is also because for most people a smartphone is their first computer and mobile Internet is their first Internet connection.

Or there is no fixed connection available, so mobile télécoms aren’t worried about cannibalizing another department in their company by hitting the « ON » switch on cheap GBs.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#136
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> govt run mobile payments infrastructure that is literally a free Stripe+Paypal+Venmo+Alipay UPI or Unified Payments Interface. I cannot stress how innovative this payment mode is. * No risk of fraud (can't approve a transaction without a PIN on your mobile) - fraud as in card cloning, malware infected websites running off with card details. Does not preclude social engineering where users fall into clever tricks. *…

> no privacy issues yet (money is directly debited from account without a mastercard/visa involved) Isn’t Aadhar (fingerprints + iris scan) needed to have a bank account? If yes, then it’s a bit disingenuous to say there are no privacy issues. > No risk of fraud A cursory search will show plenty of press articles re UPI fraud. For instance [1]. [1] https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/personal-finance/...

>Isn’t Aadhar (fingerprints + iris scan) needed to have a bank account? If yes, then it’s a bit disingenuous to say there are no privacy issues.

Nopes. Govt tried really hard. Attorney General didn't really sound far from Facebook's primary lawyer. But Supreme Court shut it down.

>A cursory search will show plenty of press articles re UPI fraud. For instance [1].

I should expand that I meant technical fraud - your card being cloned on a PoS, or a malware infected website siphoning card details, lax controls by card issuers etc (Amex is notorious for approving payments with just the card number and CVV)

Stuff like this is hard on UPI BUT it is isn't idiot proof. You can't really make a system secure when the human victim willingly hands over information as was alluded by your link.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing dollar prices in isolation makes almost no sense. You need to at least look at average/median monthly income and compare via some normalized metric, like a variant of Purchasing Power Parity [1] . Even if you do this, comparisons are hard. Completely different economies, market structures and target groups, subsidies, taxation, regulation, etc can all have a big effect. Looking at India, it has a GDP per Ca…

>Looking at India, it has a GDP per Capita that's 1/8 of the US Okay, then lets multiply Indian prices by 8. Someone up the thread quoted this: >For 6 dollars 50 cents, you get 1.5 GB/day for 91 days. Where in the US can I get 1.5GB/day for 91 days for $52 ? Before someone talks about congestion, this is India, with 1.3 Billion people and "third world" infrastructure. If that kind of bandwidth can be provided to that…

Not to be contrary, but that is almost exactly what I pay to T-Mobile (in the US) for unlimited data. I also have great coverage in rural parts of the country.

Strictly multiplying by 8 isn't really a good comparison, as the cost of supporting such a network in India isn't going to cost 1/8th as much as the US. I'm sure there's a lot of room for the US cellular carriers to be more efficient.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#139

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…

Ah this must explain why india has the worst network congestion and reliability out of all countries on apps I’ve worked on (and they are fairly worldwide apps)

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#140

Americans are going to be livid when they learn how cheap data plans are in India. The reason this works is free market, unlike the US where the likes of Comcast have monopoly in the regions they operate. Hasan Minhaj did a show this week on Netflix, you should watch it - he explains pretty well how horrible Comcast like companies are.

Next up americans are going to be angry about how much cheaper rent, food and services are cheaper in india too!
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