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India's richest man offers free 4G to one billion people
- maneesh 10y agoStraight up right out of The Kingsmen
- mordae 10y agoHa ha, my thought exactly! Looking forward to the fireworks.
- jlebrech 10y agohttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/
- devy 10y agoDitto
- Roboprog 10y agoDon't forget to silence your phone in church :-)
- yingnansong 10y agoDitto
- amitutk 10y agoWow, blatant PR! India's billions have had access to Internet for several years now. While traveling last year in rural areas, I was able to get voice and Internet (3G), with data plans costing $4 per Gb. And I had the option to choose from 4 different providers. Jio has definitely taken the lead in country-wide LTE, compared to HSPA+ from other providers. This is more like evolution than revolution. Yet Fareed Zakaria goes on and on about richest man, most expensive home, cash generating business, etc.
- ape4 10y agoIndia only has 1.2 billions
- prplhaz4 10y agoSeems to be the equivalent of any "free - for a limited time" type offer that most subscription-based services use as bait.
- dingo_bat 10y agoExcept the price after the free period is still 0.2x current rates from competitors.
- webtechgal 10y agoTrue, but for how long? Many commercially-smart people here colloquially describe this company as following (loose translation): You can get some/any ultimate benefit out of them only if you're capable of extracting holy water out of a crow's back side!! :-)
- fooker 10y agoYou realize that $4 per Gb is quite high for India?
- captn3m0 10y agoIt isn't. As an Indian, this is very nearly the price that we are used to paying for cable television (monthly). (DTH providers like TataSky might actually be costlier). And internet has now become almost as important as cable TV for a huge population. There is also the dependency with the "smart-phone". A decent smartphone with 3G would cost ~120 USD (8k INR). If you can pay for that, you can usually afford 2$/month or so for half a gig of data to spend on WhatsApp.
- fooker 10y agoThis works if half a gig is all you use in a month. Just using Google maps makes that impossible.
- personjerry 10y agoSo this seems like it entirely defeats Facebook's efforts in India with Internet.org... which brings up the question of why Facebook didn't just do this?
- bbctol 10y agoThis is the same company that Facebook was going to use with Internet.org. It looks like after Facebook's attempt was blocked, he realized he didn't have to be a middleman, and could just offer cheap service on his infrastructure anyway. Still, this comes across as even more damage to Facebook's attempt to be seen as altruistic, even if I expect the profit-seeking is just slightly less obvious in this case. EDIT: Oh no, the plot thickens! Facebook was working through Reliance Communications, a subsidiary of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. Reliance Jio is a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Limited. These are two halves of a split business empire; Mukesh Ambani didn't take Facebook's idea, he took the idea Facebook had for his brother!
- jitix 10y agoMukesh Ambani had been planning this for a long time now. They got the license couple of years back and then started building out the infrastructure. However Facebook's freebasics and the failed venture with his brother's company might have had some effect on the pricing that Jio is offering now.
- devnonymous 10y agoI was writing up my comment when you asked this, check it -- tl;dr : This is the same telco which was partnering with Facebook before the regulatory authority shot Free Basics down.
- fooker 10y agoNo, this is not the same telco.
- frommstoms 10y agoBecause Facebook doesn't want India to use Internet. Facebook wants India to use Facebook.
- otoburb 10y ago>>"[...] Indians will be able to use Jio for free until the end of 2016, and pay as little as 149 rupees ($2.25) a month for data after that." For additional context, Jio data rates on a $/GB basis are around one-fifth the price of competing data rates in India, and voice will evidently remain free nationwide, without roaming charges, even after the promotion period ends.[1] This seems like a game changer, provided Jio can take enough market share and start to turn a profit on their 4G network with the subsidized smartphones and free voice calling. Free voice calling scares Reliance's competitors because voice still constitutes over 60% of average revenue per user (example: in early 2016 voice was over 70%+ of Bharti Airtel's ARPU[2]). If Jio is successful, voice ARPU should drop like a rock for everybody else. The same will happen with Reliance too, but at least they're dictating the pace and degree of change on their own terms. [1] http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/reliance-jio-launch-free-voice-calls-cheaper-data-tariffs-announced-3007631/ http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-techno... [2] http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/bharti-airtel-s-q3-net-profit-falls-22-116012800797_1.html http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/bharti-ai...
- thewhitetulip 10y agoIf you look at their "packs" 199Rs: 0.5 something data 599: 20+ GB data the minimum pack is of 599 if you need data, the fact that the $/GB cost is low is a marketing gimmick. Also, yes, voice calling is a revenue generator for every other network, it'd be interesting to see how they take this challenge, considering Jio has a fiber optic cable network throughout India!
- krisroadruck 10y agoer... isn't 599r somewhere on the order of $9 USD? I'd kill to get 20+ GB a month for 9 dollars.
- DarkLinkXXXX 10y agoWould you if you made 2 dollars a day, as the average Indian citizen does?
- devnonymous 10y agoFWIW, this very same company that was planning to introduce Facebook's Free Basics as part of this very launch before the TRAI shot it down. The posted article links to the news report of that fiasco without making this fact clear. So no, this isn't some sort of altruistic move by Reliance. They would've exploited the resulting situation if they had the freedom to do so with Free Basic (and if reports are correct -- they will be doing it anyways, by monitoring traffic on their Jio platform). It is such an irony that Zuckerberg's ^mission^ of digitizing India by offering a trojan is being realized without Free Basics/internet.org by the very same company that they were planning to peddle it through. EDIT: yes, I was mistaken, Free Basics was being peddled by Reliance Communications and this is Reliance Industries. Seems like the brothers either did bury the hatchet and decided on this as Plan B after free basics failed or Mukesh just disciplined Anil in the art of PR.
- gauravsc 10y agoI think that it was Reliance Communications (Mukesh's brothers company) and not Reliance Jio that facebook hd tied up to deliver free basics. It is not the same company.
- _RPM 10y agoHow full of shit is Zuckerberg do you think?
- avinashv 10y agoThere is no hatchet burying relevant to this: Mukesh and Anil's Reliances are separate. Reliance Communications direct competes with Reliance Jio.
- devnonymous 10y agoUh huh? Tell me more please because what I read here : http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/reliance-jio-launch-may-be-deferred-to-december/51522283 http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/reliance-ji... Reliance Jio has already inked a pact with Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Communications for airwaves sharing while the latter has acquired the Russsian telco Sistema that offers services under the MTS brand. The deal allowed Reliance Communications to get access to MTS spectrum in the 850 Mhz band that can be used to offer 4G services. Is complete falsehood! Sheesh, journalists huh? Here's another : http://telecomtalk.info/ril-infotel-and-rcom-to-tie-up-for-4g-wireless-broadband-services/81078/ http://telecomtalk.info/ril-infotel-and-rcom-to-tie-up-for-4... And some other things, which of course are unrelated and completely coincidental: http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/infrastructure/towers/anil-ambani-owned-rcom-may-walkout-of-tower-business-likely-to-sell-51-stake-in-reliance-infratel/47169813 http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/infrastruct... http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-04-23/news/31387124_1_telecom-towers-largest-tower-tower-arm http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-04-23/news...
- hackaflocka 10y agoI was recently reading an article about James Watt, and his steam engine. It's a remarkable story. I'm reasonably intelligent, but I'm pretty sure that even if I was given his tools and his blueprints, I would never be able to construct an actual working steam engine (input burning coal, output rotating shaft). This got me thinking about how in India (I'm Indian), we don't have any of the older technology. We don't actually know how to construct a steam engine, or an internal combustion engine, or an electrical engine from scratch. All the key components are imported from Japan, or Germany or the U.S. As a child, my little toys with electrical or gas motors (RC airplanes) in them were all imported. I think there's a lot of focus on software because it's actually easier to tinker with. All one needs is a PC and internet. I suspect there are lots of mechanically inclined Indians who would love to work on motors, engines, stuff that makes shafts rotate. But we simply don't have the basic tools and infrastructure to tinker with those. I guess what I'm saying here is that while it's very good that there's more internet infrastructure being laid out in India. I wish someone like the Ambanis would lay out infrastructure that could allow for tinkering with older technology as well.
- devnonymous 10y agoerm, just because you didn't bother looking doesn't mean the 'tools and infrastructure' don't exist in India. There are a shitton of Makers in India. Yes, Indians prefer the more thinking sciences like math and computer science but saying that's because we 'simply don't have the basic tools and infrastructure to tinker' is ridiculous. All that said, I am assuming the only thread to connect this conversation with the article was that of net connectivity ?
- hackaflocka 10y agoYou're probably one of those who also insists that India has the best teachers. Why I can't find any of their lectures on YouTube (but find a "shitton" of lectures from non-Indians) is interesting. You also probably believe India has the most powerful supercomputer and the best space program (for its budget). I'm more interested in the masses of Indians not having to shit on the street outside where they live, and having access to clean drinking water and refrigerators. Also, could you name some Indian makers who can create a steam engine, or internal combustion engine, or electrical engine from scratch? Or any that have innovated in that sphere? OK, I'll make it easy for you. Can you name a single invention at any of the IITs in their entire history, an invention that is used by the rest of the world? Also, you don't get to decide what I can post on here in which thread. HN has moderators for that purpose. And if they want, they can let me know.
- veeragoni 10y agoThe big thing that techies on hacker news need to realize here is what this company is trying to do by collecting all the data with so called "deep packet inspection". they provide data at the cost of stealing all your activities on phone irrespective of app to do big data analytics. same thing that Facebook wanted to do via internet.org. It becomes easy this way. for them data is the new oil[1]! [1] http://in.reuters.com/article/reliance-telecoms-jio-idINKCN11611V http://in.reuters.com/article/reliance-telecoms-jio-idINKCN1...
- jrockway 10y agoDo you have a source that says Facebook was planning on doing deep packet inspection?
- devnonymous 10y agoI think what the comment meant was Facebook was trying to "steal all your (online) activities on phone irrespective of app to do big data analytics. " This would have been trivial via the Free Basics program because Facebook would have been the gatekeeper for all the online activities. No deep packet inspection necessary. Just have the users agree to having all their interactions with those carefully selected 'partners' allowed to be used by FB ...for you know, providing better service and improving content.
- amenghra 10y agoAt one point at least, internet.org wasn't supporting HTTPS (see https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/05/05/facebook-opens-up-internet-org-but-theres-no-support-for-https/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/05/05/facebook-opens-u...). Doesn't prove anything, but not supporting tls makes me think they want to inspect the traffic.
- deepakprakash 10y agoIsn't this something that every ISP would be able to do? Or are you saying they have something special? If so, how?
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- grok2 10y agoWith the title structured like that (it's the company, albeit owned by India's richest man -- is it public?), this news-piece already screams "PR". But it seems like a good thing at least in the short-term -- it will start a price-war which can only hopefully benefit the customer (again in the short-term -- long-term it might kill other players in the market).
- gravypod 10y agoSomething that an old person once told me was that everything is being sold and sometimes you're the product. This is the case of "free" in this usage. This would be "free" in the same exact way that Microsoft's "free" windows 10 upgrade was "free."
- traviswingo 10y agoLol this reminds me of Samuel L. Jackson in Kingsman.
- candtoro 10y agothat was my first thought XD
- traviswingo 10y agoLol this reminds me of Samuel L. Jackson in Kingsman.
- 0xmohit 10y agoUnfortunate journalism. Suddenly makes everything appear like an act of philanthropy.