Last year during
Diwali, I was travelling in a train in my native state of Bihar. A group of
youngsters were taking about 4G connection. One of them said that half of India
have learnt internet due to Ambani’s free Jio even though many political
parties make allegations on Ambanis regarding black money. I was amazed to see excitement about Internet in less developed states where internet penetration
is still low. My parents, uncles learnt about Internet through Jio. In my
native town, Reliance Jio is like a revolution. It has changed the way people
live. They make free calls, send WhatsApp messages & videos, watch serials,
read news, watch videos, make video calls etc from Reliance Jio. Even across
Pan India, Jio has been a hit among students, lower middle class and middle
class people like us who were willing to stand in line last year to get free
services. It has reached 100 million customers in just 170 days. Many families
has just 1 4G mobile handset and all use its free services. So Jio’s actual
reach may be more than 100 million people.
I have used Idea, Vodafone and Airtel’s postpaid connection in the past. Being a postpaid customer for over a decade, I have not faced many problems but the data rates were very high till the entry of Jio. We were paying Rs 250 for 1 GB 3g Data and call rates were in the vicinity of 50p/min or 1 p/sec. As a reader of Economic times, I am aware that many recent auctions in last 5-6 years have broken the finances of many telecom operators and most of them are have heavy loans. Still the ARPU of big 3 (Airtel, Vodafone & Idea) was not over 300 at any point of time despite such high charges. I was using very less data on my mobile network & was mostly relying on home wi-fi. Also we had many players in this sector. In 2008-09 we had around 10-11 players whereas a mature market generally has 4-5 telecom operators.
But as a customer, do we care about financial problems of the telecom sector. As an MBA, I can think but normal Indian don’t care about this. These companies have “looted” us with high charges & now it is payback time. After the entry of Tata Docomo 1p/sec plan in 2009, the traffic had went upwards itself. The top-up plans for prepaid customers were very costly. But now Reliance Jio has disrupted the industry. Free calls for 7 months with practically unlimited data for all is really a sort of revolution. Many people like me are still using Big 3 as our primary SIM card but for data we have shifter to Jio. Due to bad voice calls & lack of LTE coverage of Jio, I have to rely on Airtel for making most of voice calls but I don’t care as long as I get 1 GB data per day. I have seen many people trying 20-25 times to make a call from Jio as its free. I don’t get Jio Signals in my office in Bangalore, but that’s fine. We can’t expect 100% services for free. I many even continue with Jio post 31st March and use the Prime offer of 1 GB data/day with charge 303/month and onetime payment of Rs 99. Believe me, you cant get such offer.
It is interesting to see Big 3’s & others bundles offer (Unlimited calls + 4G) data. Even all other services rates have come down. Aam Janta is king in this market now. Idea and Vodafone are merging, Airtel has purchased 2 companies- Videocon & Uninor. Aircel, MTS & Reliance Communication have merged and Tatas might join them. It seems that the road for neither Jio nor incumbent may not be smooth. And I am sure that many of the Jio’s user will stop using its services post 31st April. Even a plan of Rs 150 or 200 is costly for half of Indians & less than 10% of Indian can pay Rs 300 per month.
It will be interesting to see whether reliance can get good retuns for the 2 Lakh crores which It is going to invest or have invested in Jio. But it is certain that the Jio’s entry & free offer will be membered by our generation as a turning point in Mobile Revolution in India.
I have used Idea, Vodafone and Airtel’s postpaid connection in the past. Being a postpaid customer for over a decade, I have not faced many problems but the data rates were very high till the entry of Jio. We were paying Rs 250 for 1 GB 3g Data and call rates were in the vicinity of 50p/min or 1 p/sec. As a reader of Economic times, I am aware that many recent auctions in last 5-6 years have broken the finances of many telecom operators and most of them are have heavy loans. Still the ARPU of big 3 (Airtel, Vodafone & Idea) was not over 300 at any point of time despite such high charges. I was using very less data on my mobile network & was mostly relying on home wi-fi. Also we had many players in this sector. In 2008-09 we had around 10-11 players whereas a mature market generally has 4-5 telecom operators.
But as a customer, do we care about financial problems of the telecom sector. As an MBA, I can think but normal Indian don’t care about this. These companies have “looted” us with high charges & now it is payback time. After the entry of Tata Docomo 1p/sec plan in 2009, the traffic had went upwards itself. The top-up plans for prepaid customers were very costly. But now Reliance Jio has disrupted the industry. Free calls for 7 months with practically unlimited data for all is really a sort of revolution. Many people like me are still using Big 3 as our primary SIM card but for data we have shifter to Jio. Due to bad voice calls & lack of LTE coverage of Jio, I have to rely on Airtel for making most of voice calls but I don’t care as long as I get 1 GB data per day. I have seen many people trying 20-25 times to make a call from Jio as its free. I don’t get Jio Signals in my office in Bangalore, but that’s fine. We can’t expect 100% services for free. I many even continue with Jio post 31st March and use the Prime offer of 1 GB data/day with charge 303/month and onetime payment of Rs 99. Believe me, you cant get such offer.
It is interesting to see Big 3’s & others bundles offer (Unlimited calls + 4G) data. Even all other services rates have come down. Aam Janta is king in this market now. Idea and Vodafone are merging, Airtel has purchased 2 companies- Videocon & Uninor. Aircel, MTS & Reliance Communication have merged and Tatas might join them. It seems that the road for neither Jio nor incumbent may not be smooth. And I am sure that many of the Jio’s user will stop using its services post 31st April. Even a plan of Rs 150 or 200 is costly for half of Indians & less than 10% of Indian can pay Rs 300 per month.
It will be interesting to see whether reliance can get good retuns for the 2 Lakh crores which It is going to invest or have invested in Jio. But it is certain that the Jio’s entry & free offer will be membered by our generation as a turning point in Mobile Revolution in India.
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