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India has the highest data usage per smartphone

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Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#151

Post by signal11 »

type-2 wrote: post #121
signal11 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/...

you don't need an aadhar card to open a bank account only a pan card(no biometrics) issued by tax dept, which you can link with your aadhar card by your own choice. The govt wants you to do this but the caanot force you as the supreme court has said.

According to the Supreme Court ruling, "the Aadhaar number must still be quoted to file income tax returns and apply for a personal account number (PAN)."[1]

[1] https://qz.com/india/1351263/supreme-court-verdict-how-india...

This is just one source but there's lot of others reporting the same thing. Do you have a citation that says otherwise?

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#152

Post by AFascistWorld »

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...

Cheap equipment and population density, dealing with Indian companies is like testing your patience with their never-ending bid to seek even lower prices.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#153

Post by cameronbrown »

inapis wrote: post #98
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…

> Indian creators on YouTube have pretty much surpassed every big name streaming company.

I think T-Series would like a word.

In all seriousness I think the proliferation of independent content creators is incredible. Maybe content is of lower quality, but it's more fun.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#154

Post by H8crilA »

Danieru wrote: post #127
Scoundreller wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd love to learn more on your opinion about these REITs. Looking at the lastest financials report: https://s22.q4cdn.com/758587962/files/doc_financials/quarter... They are reporting a leverage ratio of ~7. My initial hot-take: That's a leverage multiple; not a ratio. Yet reading their formula they are reporting that 7 as DEBT / PRE-DEPRECATION-PROFIT. Thus such a formula is not an LTV but rather a formula one might…

Honestly I have no idea how their financials look like, I'm simply playing trends (I've even bought into BYND and exited at some profit). But one thing I do know is that the stock prices of AMT and SBAC do not look particularly different in the times when rates were going up (Oct 2015 - Dec 2018 [1]). Of course such behaviour could be just long term market delusions, so trade with caution!

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TB3MS

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#156

Post by Synaesthesia »

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…

Damn. We’re paying too much in South Africa! It’s way more expensive here. But I guess the carriers charge what they can get away with. Data is also a lot cheaper in Kenya for the average person. Here in SA its still out of reach for many people.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#157

Post by treis »

justaguyhere wrote: post #70

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.

>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.

What does Comcast have to do with the price of cellular data?

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#158

Post by type-2 »

signal11 wrote: post #151
type-2 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't need an aadhar card to open a bank account only a pan card(no biometrics) issued by tax dept, which you can link with your aadhar card by your own choice. The govt wants you to do this but the caanot force you as the supreme court has said.

According to the Supreme Court ruling, "the Aadhaar number must still be quoted to file income tax returns and apply for a personal account number (PAN)."[1] [1] https://qz.com/india/1351263/supreme-court-verdict-how-india... This is just one source but there's lot of others reporting the same thing. Do you have a citation that says otherwise?

I don't have a aadhar card yet and I don't intend to get one. I have a pan card but I had it made a few years ago. I am not aware if things have changed, I'll ask around tomorrow for ground information.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#159

Post by signal11 »

2T1Qka0rEiPr wrote: post #116
signal11 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broadly, no. I know the other reply said: > 35$ for 1TB up/down, 150 Mbps. Available in all major cities. Good enough? But that's affordable for a very thin slice of the population. Remember that India's average nominal income, i.e., not PPP-adjusted, is $140 per month. Also, this only works in the better-off areas of the "major cities" (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and similar) -- there's a lot of th…

Thanks. I suppose my question was less about the affordability of a landline connection, but consumption of. Interesting that you said its a marker of wealth - but are you essentially saying that for everyone else it's not that common. At the heart of what I'm asking is: Did India skip this generation of high-landline consumption, and jump straight to mobile internet?

Yes, for now.

Jio's rival Airtel owns satellite/cable tv platforms and even supplies wired internet in parts of major cities. No one with any ambition has really tried wired internet in India -- for a long time the only way to get it was via the government-run telecoms provider (who are -- surprise! -- not very good).

Jio's parent company produces a lot of movies in India and in Hollywood, including Arrival, Ready Player One, Ghost in the Shell, Lincoln, etc. They know the value of a converged platform that serves data + video. And they don't have a satellite/cable tv network because the Jio vision was all-digital, all IP. And they have been building the backhaul to do this at scale across India (lots of planning applications are online) and are now slowly trialling Jio GigaFibre (a Gigabit Home Fibre service) in parts of India.

What I don't know is if they can turn these trials into a compellingly priced proposition Indians will pay for (and get rid of their cable tv subscriptions for -- and cable is very popular in India, even wired cable tv -- even in low-income neighbourhoods. So clearly India can solve the last-mile wiring problem if they want to). But they have been able to do it with 4G and I suspect they wouldn't trial a Gigabit fibre product if they didn't have a proposition in mind.

Incidentally if you're wondering: "won't 5G make wired internet redundant" -- India has lots of cell towers but also lots of people connecting to each of those towers. This means that often speeds during the daytime are pathetic. I personally used Jio and Airtel while visiting India recently in May, and even web pages had trouble loading (on both networks) in the afternoon^. I suspect the effective bandwidth available per subscriber in even small Indian cities (1M would be small in India) would be quite variable, and certainly small during busy periods.

Sorry if this is too much detail. I just find the ambition involved in bringing internet at scale to an entire country (especially one the size of India!) endlessly fascinating.

^ May is 'peak summer' in India, and the afternoon sees very few people on the roads and the bazaars are deserted as people rest or take a siesta. I suspect internet usage goes through the roof then.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#160

Post by pkd »

gingabriska wrote: post #125
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…

What gave so much confidence to Jio to discount that much? Did their flavor of party come to power during that time? Also, India would have better date quality if market was open to foreign players without requiring Indian stakes. India has very high density in many areas where these kind of data rates are possible and we all would be on 1gbps connections

Reliance (Jio's parent company) spent years laying down a fiber optic network in the country before they announced Jio. To get subscribers off their current plans they _had_ to provide extraordinarily low prices. When they first launched, they gave away about 4GB of 4G data per day for free for the first year to all new subscribers. This shook the market up so much that the congestion was in the process for procuring a Jio SIM as they were all sold out.

I think people on this thread are overstating the data quality problems. I don't live in India anymore but I still retain a Vodafone SIM card that I use when I travel back. On their 4G plan, I easily get 15Mbps, which is enough to stream full HD videos if you wanted to. 4K on the phone is not a requirement for most people as I don't know of any phones with full 4K displays in the market.

The market is actually doing very well, especially compared to North America (where I currently live).

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