It has been one year since Mukesh Ambani’s long-planned 4G network started. What happens nowIJ
Until Reliance Jio started, people were joking about Mukesh Ambani’s second foray into the world of telecom as being a stillborn project. There is no doubt that Reliance Jio having to climb over several technical obstacles on the way towards launching a greenfield telecom project across India in a day. The sheer size and population dynamics of India make it an extremely challenging country to launch any product, let alone a product that is intended to be used by a 100 million people. And as such, Reliance Jio has had fairly glitch-free launch, the most notable issue being a potential leak of customer information.
But much like when Mukesh Ambani made his first foray into telecom back around the turn of the millennium, this was predicated around a service. The first time around, it was voice and the ‘Sehwag Ki Maa’ joke became what people today would call a meme. This time, there was no need to have a corny advert or really push devices (until now) because it was all about data. And while I am not your typical data consumers - I have a Jio connection in addition to a Vodafone and Airtel mobile connections and a home-DSl connection and consume over 500GB of data every month at the bare minimum yet even then Jio has changed my life.
Earlier I used to get data warning messages every month, that I’ve overused so much data and must buy top-up packs at extortionate prices. And if you are always on your smartphone like you and I both are, one had no option but to pay. Jio changed that. Over the past few months I’ve discovered that not only do I not have an issue playing streaming music or video over a cellular network as opposed to my WiFi at home. Not just with the stability of the data network, but also the amount of data I consume. Seriously, watching video over a mobile network was something one would only do if they were absolutely desperate. And I’ve forked over thousands of rupees to Airtel and Vodafone on excess data charges. And no matter what image people had of Mukesh Ambani before Jio, he has certainly transformed that after Jio’s launch.
But just like water isn’t free and we will pay a price for water soon enough, data isn’t free. Well, at least it is free for now but what laterIJ If I was an investor in Reliance I would be worried about the long-term sustainability of much cheap plans for data, or no plans at all. While Jio has me gaga as a customer and has changed the way almost every Indian with a smartphone, and that is hundreds of millions of Indians use data and will definitely change the media landscape in India as well going forward, there will be some price to pay sometime. Also, I feel that it is in the national interest to have multiple companies operating in the telecom sector, not just multiple companies but multiple healthy companies. Making money is not a sin, yes, making extraordinary profits is deeply unethical, but policies and practices should not be changed to favour a newcomer alone.
This is just the first year of Jio, maybe a more comprehensive analysis of what Jio has done could happen after their smart ‘basic’ mobile is introduced into the market. But there is no doubt that the service has changed the way we use our phones forever.