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India has the highest data usage per smartphone

thehindu.com

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Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#251

Post by sbmthakur »

gingabriska wrote: post #236
pkd wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Jio's network infrastructure is far advanced when compared to other operations. They didn't just build it by keeping 4G in mind. It can support 5G and follow up generations without a lot of modifications. Incumbent operators had to upgrade their 2G/3G infra to support 4G. In fact, lack of 2G/3G service is a reason why Jio doesn't operate in Andaman & Nicobar islands where it's mandatory for operators to support 2G/3G service.

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

I would say it was access to funding and top-level infra. Not to forget, the industry was stagnant when it comes to high prices.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#252

Post by pkd »

gingabriska wrote: post #236
pkd wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I guess I forgot to include the little fact that Reliance is the biggest conglomerate in India and it's owner is India's richest person. Even if Jio had crashed, it would have made a very small dent in Reliance's fortunes.

I included the fibre optic network because most of the other operators don't have a high capacity network like that across the country. Owning your own infrastructure allows you to undercut your opponents because you don't really have to ameliorate them to get access to their infrastructure.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#253

Post by vardump »

fastball wrote: post #132
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #102

Finland's monthly data usage per SIM is 23.8, Austria's is 9.9. Both of which are higher than the number quoted for india in the article if the assumption is made that SIM = smartphone.

I believe many Indians have multiple SIMs.

People in Finland and Austria probably have multiple phones with 4G SIMs as well.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#254

Post by Scrantonicity »

legulere wrote: post #245
deepGem wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're paying too much in America. Thats mostly because of population density and sunk labor costs for building the infrastructure. Many parts of US are so sparsely populated that the densely populated regions have to subsidize some of the costs of buildding the infrastrcuture in those regions. Canada is the worst when it comes to mobile services because they don't have cities like New York to subsidize the sparse reg…

If you look to Europe that does not hold. Sparse and mountainous countries like Sweden, Finland and Austria are the cheaper ones. It seems that it depends more on the population count of a country.

The population density argument really doesn't hold up.

Australia has a lower density and much much better plans.

SK, 6th in population density within Canada has the best rates because they have a crown-owned telecom provider SaskTel

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#255

Post by fastball »

vardump wrote: post #253
fastball wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe many Indians have multiple SIMs.

People in Finland and Austria probably have multiple phones with 4G SIMs as well.

Having multiple phones with a sim each would keep the usage per SIM static.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#256

Post by signal11 »

miohtama wrote: post #211
inapis wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're moving goal posts. Aadhar being necessary for tax filing !== Aadhar is mandatory for operating a bank account, claims which you made in previous posts. Yes, going backwards government can indeed find your bank accounts because you might quote them on tax forms but having Aadhar is NOT necessary for operating a bank account. I have multiple accounts, none of which have been closed or service being denied for la…

Also I am pretty sure government can find all of your bank accounts without Aadhar, using a court order.

A huge criticism of Aadhar is that with Aadhar, a court order isn’t necessary. The Aadhar act allows any lookup authorized by mid level bureaucrats.

Also, given that a lot of Aadhar data has leaked (even the biometrics have leaked in some states[2]) and given the lack of privacy legislation in India, it’s trivial for private entities, including scammers, to know your bank accounts.

Wide availability of bank account info has enabled a number of social engineering attacks[1].

Separately UPI remains vulnerable to SIM cloning as the phone number is crucial to UPI identity.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?&hl=en&q=upi+fraud+in+india

[2] https://medium.com/karana/gujarat-biometric-leak-and-registe...

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#257

Post by mamon »

Frost1x wrote: post #165

I wonder how population density effects price for cellular carriers. One reason wireless is expensive in the US, to my knowledge, is because much of the surface area is sparsely populated with customers requiring more wireless tower infrastructure to cover fewer people (then costs are spread across most the national or regional customer base). In dense cities, I imagine towers can theoretically serve more people. Obv…

In dense cities you encounter another problem: with too many smartphones concentrated on the small area cell towers themselves can hit their bandwith limits. I actually get better LTE transfer speeds (around 40-50 Mbits/s) when visiting my family in a rural area of Poland than I get in the city center of Warsaw, the capitol.

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#258

Post by aditnryn »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #60
jbarham wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile data in Canada is notoriously expensive. The official justification is that it's a large, sparsely populated country. The actual explanation is regulatory capture by a cozy/corrupt domestic oligopoly that has successfully lobbied the government to stop foreign competitors. Like Canada, Australia is also a very large, sparsely populated country but mobile data is fast and reasonably priced (e.g., https://www.al…

Even Telstra is offering 60GB / month for $49 https://www.telstra.com.au/mobile-phones/sim-only-plans I’d be all over that but it says the plan is only available for new services and I’m rather fond of my mobile number.

Does Australia not have mobile number portability?

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#259

Post by [deleted] »

ska wrote: post #147
uep wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You pay $18/month for unlimited?

[deleted]

Re: India has the highest data usage per smartphone

#260

Post by uep »

ska wrote: post #147
uep wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You pay $18/month for unlimited?

Absolutely not. Thanks for pointing that out. I definitely misread the grandparent's post to be monthly (which means I'm paying 3x). I think ~$2.16/month is so cheap that it didn't register as possible.

I do, however, have truly unlimited, which means I can tether without hesitation. T-Mobile does have unlimited plans at $35/line a month for 55 or older, but that is still twice the $18/month price.

As the sibling post states, there are competitive plans like Mint, or FreedomPop, which offer extremely cheap plans, but nowhere near 1.5GiB of data a day. So I guess we are much further away than I thought we were.

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