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India, Jio, and the Four Internets

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161–170 of 279 posts

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#161
post #5

Back in 2015, costs for internet were not cheap,here in India. There were many who couldn't afford (including me).In those days(2015), I used to be on 2KBps network(You read it right, kilobytes per second). It was Idea Cellular's ₹68 2G plan(USD 0.91) where it provided 1Gigabyte of data for month. 3G plans were costlier. There was no 4G until Nov/Dec of 2015 when Airtel introduced 4G(it was hyped,but it was also cost…

Jio’s offer is really good on paper, but it’s got to be one of the slowest 4G networks I’ve used when I tried it in February. Anyone know if this is because of a lack of competition (there’s effectively one other serious player left in the Indian telco market right now), or capacity constraints?

Interesting. I read an article that mentioned it was the fastest teleco(?) in the world.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#162
post #86

Too much overconfidence in Reliance. This is the same firm well known for totally missing the boat on India's IT boom. It has done a great job deploying the network. Unmatched probably anywhere in the world. But that set of skills has nothing to do with charting out a vision that will work in future. That set of skills to rollout a network at huge scale quickly, existed in India because of cut throat competition in t…

Great points in parent comment. Additionally: the problem of nepotism. The most recent shareholder AGM showed up in my YouTube recos. I didn't watch the video, but in the mouse-over preview there were only 3 people: Mukesh, his mother, and his wife.

Well, the entire business started with his father Dhiru bhai ambani. It just happens to operate in a different way compared to the organizations we know in the west.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#163
post #86

Too much overconfidence in Reliance. This is the same firm well known for totally missing the boat on India's IT boom. It has done a great job deploying the network. Unmatched probably anywhere in the world. But that set of skills has nothing to do with charting out a vision that will work in future. That set of skills to rollout a network at huge scale quickly, existed in India because of cut throat competition in t…

Great points in parent comment. Additionally: the problem of nepotism. The most recent shareholder AGM showed up in my YouTube recos. I didn't watch the video, but in the mouse-over preview there were only 3 people: Mukesh, his mother, and his wife.

Wasn't shareholder AGM virtual this time because of the Covid situation? So it makes sense why it would only be family members present physically, if it was streamed from his ridiculous 20 odd floor residence.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, Europe is a country, not a company. It isn't about maximizing profits. It's about maximizing the equity among citizens. I'd argue that the majority of consumers will take anything for free and not think about the consequences. Very much like an innocent child getting free food samples. Private businesses have no incentive to correct themselves. At the end of the day, if I was Europe, as a gover…

> At the end of the day, Europe is a country... Europe is definitely not a country!

Also, I'm pretty sure people are talking about the EU here, not Europe.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#165
I think the dismissal of EU does not sound properly justified - and the author writes off home grown innovation too easily in EU markets just because they are not “capable of chasing scale”. The bias is pretty clear for monopoly establishing practices one way or another. Interesting article otherwise.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, Europe is a country, not a company. It isn't about maximizing profits. It's about maximizing the equity among citizens. I'd argue that the majority of consumers will take anything for free and not think about the consequences. Very much like an innocent child getting free food samples. Private businesses have no incentive to correct themselves. At the end of the day, if I was Europe, as a gover…

> At the end of the day, Europe is a country... Europe is definitely not a country!

Functionally...? Especially in the context here of tech policy.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#168
post #86

Too much overconfidence in Reliance. This is the same firm well known for totally missing the boat on India's IT boom. It has done a great job deploying the network. Unmatched probably anywhere in the world. But that set of skills has nothing to do with charting out a vision that will work in future. That set of skills to rollout a network at huge scale quickly, existed in India because of cut throat competition in t…

> If you think polarization/inequality/fake news etc etc in US is bad, go and visit India. I was there in Jan and the whole place was burning. This kind of gloom and doom messaging about India has been happening since the 1950s. This is more an emotion than actual facts. The equivalent of this in US is doubting the capabilities of SpaceX because of BLM protests - totally different issues.

Yup. India is growing fast, and as China has shown, people will put up with a lot as long as they see things getting better around them.

That said, India is grappling with some mindbogglingly huge problems ranging from groundwater depletion to what's likely to be the world's worst COVID epidemic, so continuing on an upward path is by no means a foregone conclusion.

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#169

"Today friends, I have great pride in announcing that Jio has designed and developed a complete 5G solution from scratch. This will enable us to launch a world-class 5G service in India using 100% homegrown technology and solution. " Wow, that's amazing. Maybe the US and the UK can also import this 5G tech in our networks? I'm getting tired of ATT's fake 5GE.

India doesn't have any semiconductor fabs. If they're not making it in-country, I can't see how it's "homegrown technology".

Ever seen "Designed by Apple in California. Made in China."?

Re: India, Jio, and the Four Internets

#170
post #5

Back in 2015, costs for internet were not cheap,here in India. There were many who couldn't afford (including me).In those days(2015), I used to be on 2KBps network(You read it right, kilobytes per second). It was Idea Cellular's ₹68 2G plan(USD 0.91) where it provided 1Gigabyte of data for month. 3G plans were costlier. There was no 4G until Nov/Dec of 2015 when Airtel introduced 4G(it was hyped,but it was also cost…

Jio’s offer is really good on paper, but it’s got to be one of the slowest 4G networks I’ve used when I tried it in February. Anyone know if this is because of a lack of competition (there’s effectively one other serious player left in the Indian telco market right now), or capacity constraints?

Sort of. Airtel is costlier than Jio and BSNL is worse in many areas. BSNL 3G is not only slower but doesn't have half the coverage of BSNL 2G (which is mostly used for calls and SMS not internet).

Jio is slowly increasing prices but is still cheaper than Airtel as far as I know. And the speed, while not true 4G, is better than BSNL 3G IME.

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