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

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#231

Post by grwthckrmstr » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 2:09 AM UTC

I pay Rs 499 (~$7) for 84 days of 1.5gb data/day, unlimited calls, and 4g speeds between 1-10mbps. This is one of the best things that happened to India in recent times. All thanks to Ambani/Jio.

Even broadband here has reached next level. I pay $30/mo for 200 Mbps speeds and 1 TB data transfer. It's hilariously cheap. This is thanks to ACT Fibernet.

I think UPI is up there in the list. At present I make 80% of my digital transactions (and close to ~100% transactions below $10) via UPI. I can't believe something this cool came out of a body of our country.

Game changers.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#232

Post by dingo_bat » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 2:39 AM UTC

zeristor wrote: post #113

rohan1024 wrote: post #103

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.…

I thought the IPv6 change in India looked odd, thanks for pointing that out. Although I’d imagine such a large addition should also be reflected in Google’s aggregate statistics, I don’t know how often they update the weightings for each country though.

Around 40% of all IPv6 users are on one ISP: Jio. That's 40% of the entire world. So I'm sure it would have reflected in aggregate statistics.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#233

Post by dingo_bat » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 2:41 AM UTC

zeristor wrote: post #117

rohan1024 wrote: post #103

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?

Generally we get what is advertised. For example, most of the times I get 70-75M on fast.com. I pay for the 75M plan in Bangalore. Incidentally, this is the lowest plan my ISP offers, and 4k streaming works no problem. Multiple 4k streams work too. But maybe not more than 3 simultaneously.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#234

Post by selimthegrim » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 2:42 AM UTC

sandGorgon wrote: post #148

justanobody wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights to privacy Considering nearly everyone (who isn't an ARPU "deadbeat") is on WhatsApp I would think the ruling doesn't matter one way or another because you don't have much privacy left anyway. Plus, if the govt wants the scoop on anyone's private life, they will just ask Facebook to hand it over or else.... (ban WhatsApp, ban Instagram, block approval for cryptocurren…

no. in india, the right to privacy was upheld by the constitutional bench of the supreme court to be a fundamental human right. This triggered a multi-billion dollar reversal of the Aadhaar biometric social-security id project. the govt cannot do this without due judicial process even if it tries to create a law. we have stronger privacy protections than the US.

Is this true in states where AFSPA applies?

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#235

Post by catchmeifyoucan » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 4:39 AM UTC

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #168

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…

”there's almost no need to buy a TV anymore to watch content.” You’re talking about access. People don’t buy a TV to get access to content, they buy one to watch the content, whether that’s via cable, OTA, streaming services, pirating, etc. Are you saying that people in India are just fine with consuming all of their TV and movies on a tiny phone screen? I know some people who don’t have a TV, but they would rather j…

Cell servicss like Jio bundle in live tv for free as well as on demand cinema. So the value prop to pay for a provider separately to get services on your TV is decreased. It's a separate cost for the same thing. So people are more likely to probably purchase new cellular connected tablets - rather than TVs.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#236

Post by gingabriska » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 4:52 AM UTC

pkd wrote: post #160

gingabriska wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

And that doesn't answer my question about Reliance agreesively discounting data plans.

Reliance just like any other telecom operator was laying cables which they could even lease to other private players.

But what exactly gave them enough confidence to go ahead with Jio, a deep discounted mobile network.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#237

Post by tsjq » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 5:39 AM UTC

megaremote wrote: post #230

KumarAseem wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had the advantage that they did not have any legacy systems to take care off. All the other operators have to take care of 2G and 3G network supporting infra along with putting in investment for 4G. So, Jio had a lot of money to use to grab the customers by offering free deals. They applied the approach of cannibalistic business growth. Also, there network is not good anymore now, as the subscriber base has grow…

> Jio had a lot of money to use to grab the customers by offering free deals How do you make money offering free deals?

offer free deals build a large customer base very quickly take a large chunk off competitors' customers offer much cheaper plans than competition kill some competitors, make others struggle to survive. gradually increase tariff. start making profits.

all you need is a large chunk of money, or absurdly low-cost loans, or some govt "assistance", or a mix of these, to last until that "start making profits" line.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#238

Post by tsjq » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 5:43 AM UTC

Most responses here extolling Jio for the low-cost mobile data.

not to forget how Jio scammed their way into existence:

[1] https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/spectrum-grab/art...

[2] https://frontline.thehindu.com/cover-story/the-great-telecom...

and, this artificially low cost data is killing competition, which will impact a lot of their debt held by banks. and to keep these banks alive, govt shall resort to some more "recapitalization".

effectively, Jio's low cost data is being funded by taxpayer money.

we all need to keep that in mind.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#239

Post by intended » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 5:59 AM UTC

megaremote wrote: post #230

KumarAseem wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had the advantage that they did not have any legacy systems to take care off. All the other operators have to take care of 2G and 3G network supporting infra along with putting in investment for 4G. So, Jio had a lot of money to use to grab the customers by offering free deals. They applied the approach of cannibalistic business growth. Also, there network is not good anymore now, as the subscriber base has grow…

> Jio had a lot of money to use to grab the customers by offering free deals How do you make money offering free deals?

Jio is part of reliance, a conglomerate in the “more money than god” category.

They also are known for their ways with price competition. Even worse if you are an OEM, delayed payments are the norm.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#240

Post by sbmthakur » Sat, Jun 22, 2019, 6:18 AM UTC

vijaybritto wrote: post #41

This is so true. My mom watches all her Serials, news and funny vids in her mobile. Our TV is deserted now! Jio forced everyone to bring down the prices. Now all those companies have begun posting quarterly losses and they don't have a humungous cash cow like jio. This is not gonna end well.

This is exactly going well. Those companies had formed some sort of a cartel and were bleeding people (especially the poor folks) with their high prices. As a student in 2015, I'd never imagined having a data enabled on my Vodafone Sim. But then things changed for good.