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Tag: LTE

  • Mobile data traffic grew by 76%, tele-market to cross Rs 6.6 trn by ’20

    NEW DELHI: Communications minister Manoj Sinha has said consumption of video content is forecast to be 75 per cent of India’s mobile data traffic by 2021, compared to 49 per cent in 2016.

    He said the Indian telecom industry has seen a paradigm shift from a voice centric market to a data-centric market. While voice business still contributes a large chunk towards operator revenues, data revenues have shown an exponential growth trajectory over the last few years.

    Speaking at a workshop on Telecom India here, the minister said that by the end of 2016 the number of internet subscribers in India was 391.50 million making India globally the 2nd highest in terms of internet users. He added that mobile data traffic also grew by 76 per cent in India in 2016, primarily attributed to increased smart phone penetration. This growing usage of smart phones, especially in urban areas, has increased the usage of internet on hand-held devices – in 2016, 559 megabytes of mobile data was generated per month by an average smart phone, up from 430 megabytes per month in 2015.

    Sinha said advancements in innovative IoT technologies like health monitors, smart transport, smart meters among others, is projected to result in 21 per cent increase in M2M services. These advances will result in a significant growth of mobile data, and as the telecom sector moves to newer technologies, TSPs will need to identify innovative avenues to monetise this data opportunity. He said the Indian Telecom Market is expected to cross the Rs 6.6 trillion revenue mark by the year 2020.

    Sinha said that one of the projects under the ‘Digital India’ initiative was ‘BharatNet’, launched to deploy high-speed optical fiber cables to connect 250,000 Gram Panchayat across the country by 2018. The project is being implemented in Phases, with more than100,000 gram panchayats connected under Phase-I as of July 2017 and states like Kerala, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh nearing 100 per cent completion.

    This project would also help in increasing the fiberized sites in India which currently stands at less than 20 per cent as compared to other developed countries.

    Major achievements of the Indian telecom industry, Sinha said, include over 400 million internet users; FDI quadrupled in FY2016-17 recording inflow of approximately $ 5.6 billion; greater than 20 per cent tower sites now diesel free; rural tele density increased by 30 per cent over the last five years; more than 3/4th of the data consumption was from 3G/4G; tje telecom industry generates over 4 million jobs direct and indirect’ LTE device ecosystem grew by 270 per cent from 2015; and 38 new mobile manufacturing units set up since September 2015.

    He added that the government was working aggressively to connect 54,000 unconnected villages and would speed up its efforts after getting due reports from all states. An inter-ministerial group is looking into the financial health of the sector.

    Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said India is attempting to do nothing short of charting a new digital strategy for growth. She said the new Telecom Policy will be a key building block for achieving the growth target of 10 per cent from the current 7.6 per cent as Telecom and IT are the two sectors contributing to 16.5 per cent to the GDP, and there are immense possibilities for it to go up to 25 per cent.

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  • Digital India: Jio & Samsung shift LTE mobile landscape

    MUMBAI: Samsung has announced its innovative “I&G (Infill & Growth) Project” for Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd in India. This joint project was established to upgrade current LTE mobile communication services across India by expanding both the current network capacity as well as network coverage.

    Jio has built a world-class all-IP data strong future proof network with latest 4G LTE technology. It is the only network conceived and born as a Mobile Video Network from the ground up and supporting Voice over LTE technology. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies.

    The new project sets a high benchmark for LTE services in India through wider coverage, inbuilding penetration and the highest speeds, regardless of the user’s location. Utilizing spectrum in the 850, 1800 and 2300MHz bands, it will enable seamless indoor and outdoor coverage in dense urban areas. The project will also extend Jio’s superiority in rural areas by expanding its reach to over 90 per cent of the population.

    Previously, Samsung provided the LTE core, base stations and solutions required for VoLTE services, as well as massive deployment services for establishing a nationwide network for Jio. The two companies have successfully established the world’s largest greenfield LTE network.

    Reliance Jio Infocomm president Jyotindra Thacker said, “Samsung and Jio successfully achieved 100 million subscribers in 170 days, making us the fastest-growing company in the world, and the numbers continue to rapidly grow. It was possible because we introduced a truly effective LTE service, Pan-India. We are committed to bringing game-changing digital experiences to India with superior ecosystems,mobile content, all-IP networks and ongoing process innovations.”

    “As Jio’s end-to-end LTE solutions partner, it is a great pleasure for Samsung to contribute to Jio’s tremendous success,” said Samsung Electronics president and head of networks business Youngky Kim. “The massive deployment of over a million cells across India is especially remarkable. We will strive to create new paradigms for LTE-Advanced Pro and 5G by closely cooperating with Jio as a unified workforce.”

    Jio stands as an innovator which transformed the telecommunications sector in India last year. The company has already established itself as the leading data service provider in the country within a few months of commencing operations. It was also India’s first operator to introduce free-of-charge High Definition calls (VoLTE). This is especially notable, as this
    approach is now becoming a new market rule in India.

    Samsung, as Jio’s strategic partner, has established a foundation for Indians to enjoy exclusive services, including voice calls, with data as their engine. It has also gone a step further, enabling Jio to offer a superior service to its users by providing professional solutions such as Samsung VoLTE, Quality Monitoring and Analysis (VoMA) and Cognitive Traffic
    Monitoring and Optimizer for a superior user experience. Further, it was through Samsung’s VoMA that the steady management of high traffic in data-dense environments was enabled.

    The tools monitor and optimize mobile data services, and have successfully contributed to enabling Jio to provide its subscribers with a stable and improved user experience. The relationship between Jio and Samsung goes back to 2012, when the two companies signed a turn-key agreement covering the entire scope of network, ranging from equipment to establishment and maintenance services.

  • Consumers may get 60-day notice from unprofessional telcos

    Consumers may get 60-day notice from unprofessional telcos

    MUMBAI: The latest consultation paper of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is about issues related to closure of mobile phone services. TRAI seeks to extend the time mobile users get to change their service-provider if a particular company is shutting shop or selling its spectrum.

    The paper titled ‘Closure of Access Service” will seek feedback from telecom eco-system stakeholders to set up a framework to give an extended time and more options to users facing termination of services. A licence coming to fruition or failure of the service provider to bag spectrum or spectrum trading are normally the reasons behind an entity shutting shop.

    TRAI took note of three significant instances. Reliance Communications stopped CDMA services and migrated to LTE. Airtel acquired spectrum from Aircel and Videocon through trading deals. In some cases, operators do not renew the spectrum and stop offering services in a particular area. Tata Docomo has lost subscribers due to such non-renewal.

    The paper follows complaints from the subscribers who said they did not receive adequate notice or communication from their service-provider and their mobile number was disconnected. If TRAI has its way, cell-phone users will get more time to change their company in such a case.

    A mobile user currently gets 30 days to change its service-provider but this has been found to be far less than expected. The law requires the company to give the department of telecommunications (DoT) a 60-day notice in such a scenario.

    India’s low broadband penetration is a matter of concern and the government needs to do a lot more work in the field to go up in the global ladder, TRAI chairperson RS Sharma said.

    Addressing Assocham summit, Sharma said that, according to an ITU paper, the penetration in India was only 7%. He said the report stated that India was even behind countries such as Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.

    TRAI has recommended to the government on using cable television network for broadband delivery. In developed US and in Europe, around 50-60 per cent broadband comes from Digital Cable TV, he added.

    Foreign direct investment (FDI) attracted by the telecom sector in India meanwhile has jumped to more than US$10 billion in the first eight months of 2016-17 registering a 6-7 fold increase as compared to 2014-15 and 2015-16, telecom secretary JS Deepak said at the summit.

    Considering about 97% of population was covered by the 2G telecom network provided mostly by private telecom operators, there was a need to both popularise and simplify USSD (unstructured supplementary service data), he added. There was a need to work on a push USSD rather than a pull USSD, merchants should be able to push in a message to feature phone users where-in one just has to okay it for a transaction, he said.

  • Consumers may get 60-day notice from unprofessional telcos

    Consumers may get 60-day notice from unprofessional telcos

    MUMBAI: The latest consultation paper of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is about issues related to closure of mobile phone services. TRAI seeks to extend the time mobile users get to change their service-provider if a particular company is shutting shop or selling its spectrum.

    The paper titled ‘Closure of Access Service” will seek feedback from telecom eco-system stakeholders to set up a framework to give an extended time and more options to users facing termination of services. A licence coming to fruition or failure of the service provider to bag spectrum or spectrum trading are normally the reasons behind an entity shutting shop.

    TRAI took note of three significant instances. Reliance Communications stopped CDMA services and migrated to LTE. Airtel acquired spectrum from Aircel and Videocon through trading deals. In some cases, operators do not renew the spectrum and stop offering services in a particular area. Tata Docomo has lost subscribers due to such non-renewal.

    The paper follows complaints from the subscribers who said they did not receive adequate notice or communication from their service-provider and their mobile number was disconnected. If TRAI has its way, cell-phone users will get more time to change their company in such a case.

    A mobile user currently gets 30 days to change its service-provider but this has been found to be far less than expected. The law requires the company to give the department of telecommunications (DoT) a 60-day notice in such a scenario.

    India’s low broadband penetration is a matter of concern and the government needs to do a lot more work in the field to go up in the global ladder, TRAI chairperson RS Sharma said.

    Addressing Assocham summit, Sharma said that, according to an ITU paper, the penetration in India was only 7%. He said the report stated that India was even behind countries such as Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.

    TRAI has recommended to the government on using cable television network for broadband delivery. In developed US and in Europe, around 50-60 per cent broadband comes from Digital Cable TV, he added.

    Foreign direct investment (FDI) attracted by the telecom sector in India meanwhile has jumped to more than US$10 billion in the first eight months of 2016-17 registering a 6-7 fold increase as compared to 2014-15 and 2015-16, telecom secretary JS Deepak said at the summit.

    Considering about 97% of population was covered by the 2G telecom network provided mostly by private telecom operators, there was a need to both popularise and simplify USSD (unstructured supplementary service data), he added. There was a need to work on a push USSD rather than a pull USSD, merchants should be able to push in a message to feature phone users where-in one just has to okay it for a transaction, he said.

  • How will Jio’s launch impact the digital ecosystem?

    How will Jio’s launch impact the digital ecosystem?

    MUMBAI: Jio’s launch last week has caused a stir in the telecommunications industry. Calls and messages on the new network are free while mobile data is 3 to 5 times cheaper compared to competitors. For Jio as a disruptor this is a reasonable strategy: Silicon Valley’s leading VC Peter Thiel has said that “[start-ups] have to be 10 times better than second best”.

    But in addition to rattling up the stock market, Jio’s strategy is likely to have a longer and beneficial impact on India’s digital ecosystem.

    Jio has thrown a glove to other mobile operators by slashing service costs for consumers. While Jio’s offering is only available to LTE customers, that is not relevant: consumers on 2G or 3G will ask their carrier, why do they need to pay 3x to 5x more for slower internet speeds? This is likely to create a pricing war between India’s mobile operators. Such price wars have been commonplace across the world, latest example being Singapore just a few months ago.

    As prices go down, more people will switch on their mobile data services for the first time. GSMA Intelligence estimates only 15% of people in India used mobile broadband in Q4 2015, while smartphone ownership would allow much higher rates already today. Cheaper data increases the share of smartphone users who use mobile data but also incentivizes feature phone owners to upgrade to a smartphone as the main benefit (online access) becomes affordable.

    It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this would accelerate the progress of digital democracy or the vision of digital India by breaking the perception barrier among the bottom of the pyramid. “Data is for everybody” would be the new mantra.

    This will also spur the growth of affordable 4G devices and a multi-SIM environment; further reducing the customer loyalty towards the network. Customers will keep on switching for better price or data bandwidth.

    This in turn helps the digital ecosystem grow. While India’s own services like Ditto TV, Hooq and Gaana are already present in the market, a majority of global digital merchants do not have India in their sights yet. Beside few smartphone owners and lack of access to online payment methods, low mobile data penetration has been one of the key roadblocks.

    Globally, average Netflix users watch 133 hours of video per month which translates into roughly 133 gigabytes (GB)  of data consumed. The average Spotify user listens to 28 hours of music (34-35 GB data) per month. In Western markets a large portion of this content is consumed through landline internet, so such data volumes are not an issue. But for a mobile-first market like India, they have so far made such digital services inaccessible to a large part of the population.

    Reduced cost of data will then result in a bigger uptake of digital content services as users can consume more for less. Local providers will be able to increase their audience while international merchants like Netflix, Spotify, Apple and Amazon are going to reconsider their strategy for India in light of the changing ecosystem.

    With the challenges of mobile data considerably reduced, all other factors point to growth and make India one of the most attractive markets for global merchants.

    Another consequence of the data revolution is voice over IP services like Skype, Viber, and others will get more acceptance in the eco-system from the telecom operators; while this will create more opportunities for them we can see many home-grown companies ready to challenge their hegemonies. Obviously, for customers the more means the merrier.

    While the pricing war will create a temporary setback for carriers, in the long run everyone will benefit. Consumers get affordable internet and access to more digital content. Carriers will be able to increase user stickiness (by negotiating and offering exclusive deals and co-promotions with digital service providers) and average revenue per user (from both increased data consumption and from providing carrier billing for these services).

    (The author is the general manager of Fortumo India Mobile Payments. The views expressed are entirely his own and Indiantelevision.com does not subscribe to them)

  • How will Jio’s launch impact the digital ecosystem?

    How will Jio’s launch impact the digital ecosystem?

    MUMBAI: Jio’s launch last week has caused a stir in the telecommunications industry. Calls and messages on the new network are free while mobile data is 3 to 5 times cheaper compared to competitors. For Jio as a disruptor this is a reasonable strategy: Silicon Valley’s leading VC Peter Thiel has said that “[start-ups] have to be 10 times better than second best”.

    But in addition to rattling up the stock market, Jio’s strategy is likely to have a longer and beneficial impact on India’s digital ecosystem.

    Jio has thrown a glove to other mobile operators by slashing service costs for consumers. While Jio’s offering is only available to LTE customers, that is not relevant: consumers on 2G or 3G will ask their carrier, why do they need to pay 3x to 5x more for slower internet speeds? This is likely to create a pricing war between India’s mobile operators. Such price wars have been commonplace across the world, latest example being Singapore just a few months ago.

    As prices go down, more people will switch on their mobile data services for the first time. GSMA Intelligence estimates only 15% of people in India used mobile broadband in Q4 2015, while smartphone ownership would allow much higher rates already today. Cheaper data increases the share of smartphone users who use mobile data but also incentivizes feature phone owners to upgrade to a smartphone as the main benefit (online access) becomes affordable.

    It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that this would accelerate the progress of digital democracy or the vision of digital India by breaking the perception barrier among the bottom of the pyramid. “Data is for everybody” would be the new mantra.

    This will also spur the growth of affordable 4G devices and a multi-SIM environment; further reducing the customer loyalty towards the network. Customers will keep on switching for better price or data bandwidth.

    This in turn helps the digital ecosystem grow. While India’s own services like Ditto TV, Hooq and Gaana are already present in the market, a majority of global digital merchants do not have India in their sights yet. Beside few smartphone owners and lack of access to online payment methods, low mobile data penetration has been one of the key roadblocks.

    Globally, average Netflix users watch 133 hours of video per month which translates into roughly 133 gigabytes (GB)  of data consumed. The average Spotify user listens to 28 hours of music (34-35 GB data) per month. In Western markets a large portion of this content is consumed through landline internet, so such data volumes are not an issue. But for a mobile-first market like India, they have so far made such digital services inaccessible to a large part of the population.

    Reduced cost of data will then result in a bigger uptake of digital content services as users can consume more for less. Local providers will be able to increase their audience while international merchants like Netflix, Spotify, Apple and Amazon are going to reconsider their strategy for India in light of the changing ecosystem.

    With the challenges of mobile data considerably reduced, all other factors point to growth and make India one of the most attractive markets for global merchants.

    Another consequence of the data revolution is voice over IP services like Skype, Viber, and others will get more acceptance in the eco-system from the telecom operators; while this will create more opportunities for them we can see many home-grown companies ready to challenge their hegemonies. Obviously, for customers the more means the merrier.

    While the pricing war will create a temporary setback for carriers, in the long run everyone will benefit. Consumers get affordable internet and access to more digital content. Carriers will be able to increase user stickiness (by negotiating and offering exclusive deals and co-promotions with digital service providers) and average revenue per user (from both increased data consumption and from providing carrier billing for these services).

    (The author is the general manager of Fortumo India Mobile Payments. The views expressed are entirely his own and Indiantelevision.com does not subscribe to them)

  • Ambani’s disruptive digital India Jio “datagiri” gameplan

    Ambani’s disruptive digital India Jio “datagiri” gameplan

    MUMBAI: The Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries Ltd on 1 September unveiled ‘datagiri’ (dominace via data services) coupled with disruptive marketing tactics in classic Reliance style — all dedicated to Prime Minister Modi’s Digital India dream.

    And while Ambani enumerated the many features of Reliance Jio service, the group’s telecoms and value-added services company, for about 45 minutes in a speech at RIL’s AGM here, there was mayhem on the stock markets. Crores of rupees were wiped off in fortunes as share prices of incumbent telcos tumbled. An analysis by a business news paper estimated that many listed telecoms companies, including younger brother Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications, lost over Rs 11,0000 crore on the markets.

    While the stock markets were witnessing a bloodbath, Ambani told his shareholders, “In the journey of time, there comes a few life changing movements. Our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s inspiring vision of a “Digital India” is one such movement. Jio is dedicated to realizing our Prime Minister’s vision for 1.2 billion Indians. Jio will give the `power of data’ to each Indian to fulfill every dream and to collectively take India to global digital leadership.”

    Sample some facts: free voice call for Jio customers; data at almost 1/10the the price of those prevailing now; no roaming charges; one million Wi-Fi hotspots around the country by middle of next year; 100 per cent VolTe network that allows simultaneous usage of voice and data services; all customers to get freebies of voice calls, data usage and  video streaming totally free 5 September to 31 December, 2016; a 4G network coverage of  18,000 cities and towns & and over 200,000 villages; student discount of 25% on data usage and a promised investment of about US$ 14 billion in the Reliance Jio ecosystem.

    “The Jio ecosystem stands tall on five fundamental pillars (of) best quality broadband network with the highest capacity; a world of affordable 4G smartphones and wireless IP devices; compelling applications and content; superior digital service experiences and affordable and simple tariffs,” Ambani said, sending the Indian telecoms consumers, reeling under indifferent services provided by the present from incumbents, into a tizzy and queuing up for a Reliance Jio connection that has plans to cover 90 per cent of India’s population y March 2017.

    Jio’s suite looks compelling. Apart from a state-of-the-art pan-India digital services business and fixed and wireless broadband connectivity offering superior voice and data services on an all-IP network, Jio will also offer end-to-end solutions that address the entire value chain across various digital services in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, communication, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment.

    According to reports, the company filed its tariff plans with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 1 September 2016.

    Reliance Retail Ltd, another subsidiary of RIL, has introduced a slew of affordable 4G LTE smart-phones under the LYF brand, starting at Rs. 2,999. More feature-rich models will be available at progressively higher price-points like Rs. 3,999, Rs. 4999 and so on. The company has also tied up with smart-phone makers like LG, Samsung and Micromax to bundle Jio SIM and other free services.

    If all these were not enough, Ambani announced setting-up of the a venture capital fund, where Jio will work on creating Jio Digital Entrepreneurship Hubs in key cities and towns of India. The Jio Digital India Start- up Fund has set aside Rs. 5,000 crore to be invested over the next five years.

    “In this era, if you are not digital, and if you don’t have globally competitive digital tools and skills, you simply will not survive. You will get disrupted. You will be outcompeted. You will be left behind. You will become irrelevant. India and Indians cannot afford to be left behind. Today, India is ranked 155th in the world for mobile broadband Internet access, out of 230 countries,” Ambani elaborated, adding that Jio services are aimed at bringing India at par with developed telecoms market.

    If things work out as planned, then India’s broadcast ecosystem can start seeing an even great shift in consumption of video on mobile handsets, smart TVs, and on on-the-go devices.

    “Clearly, the data plans could lead to a price war in the segment with others being forced to follow suit,” says an industry observer. “All this is good for the consumer as prices will only head further south and the more they do, the more video will be consumed digitally. Which is fabulous for the OTT ecosystem that is currently being nurtured by independents and the broadcast majors.”

    Jio Welcome Offer

    The Jio ‘Welcome Offer’ provides an opportunity to every Indian to learn, try, customise and experience high quality digital services, without paying for the services up to 31 December, 2016 after which the applicable tariffs will apply.

    The company also proposes to use this time period to fine-tune its services and resolving interconnection issues with incumbent players.

    “In the last month alone, Jio customers suffered over 5 crore (50 million) call failures to other networks because of insufficient interconnect capacity,” Ambani said hinting at the all-out war being played out with incumbents accusing Reliance of not playing fair— an allegation tossed back by Reliance to competitors. “The onus is rightly on the incumbent operators not to misuse their market power by creating unfair hurdles,” Ambani reiterated.

    Jio may extend the period of free services in case Jio subscribers are not able to get adequate experience of seamless connectivity across the network due to point of inter-connect congestion, mobile number portability restrictions and if the quality of service parameters are not as per the benchmarked by desired by company management.

    Existing `invited’ or test users of Jio, who enrolled for the Jio Preview Offer, will be transitioned to the Jio Welcome Offer.

    Tariff Plans

    The Company filed  detailed tariff plans with TRAI. Ambani enumerated the following principles used for formulating the tariff plans:

    i)       Benefits of technology would be passed onto customers. All domestic voice calls for Jio customers will be absolutely free, across India and at any time. Domestic roaming charges will not apply in Jio tariffs.

    ii)      Data tariffs have been made highly affordable, with full transparency, without any associated conditions. The company is offering the lowest LTE data rates in the world. Additionally, it would offer unlimited night time LTE data.

    iii)      The Jio-Apps bouquet, which is worth Rs. 15,000 for an annual subscription, will be available complimentary for all active Jio customers up to 31 December 2017. This has been done to make digital life available to everyone.

    iv)  A special student discount offer, with 25% more data on the main tariff plans, would be offered to all students.

    v)  Jio has introduced a simple tariff structure with only 10 main plans, designed to fit every budget, as against the 22,000 tariff plans prevailing in the country today.

    These are summarised here:

    public://Untitled-2_1.jpg

    Industry Reactions

    An official statement from British telecoms giant Vodafone India said, “We have always offered great value to our customers, backed by excellent customer service, a nationwide presence, and Vodafone SuperNet, our best network ever. We will continue to do so for our hundreds of million customers across the country.”

    Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), an apex body of telcos in India, which had gone public over differences with member Reliance Jio taking the war of words to the Prime Minister’s Office, welcomed the announcements.

    “Reliance Jio is a valued member of the COAI. We wish to congratulate them on the announcement of the launch of their services. As a valuable member of the association, we welcome them with great warmth and applaud the bold vision of Mukesh Ambani and the innovation he proposes to bring to the industry,” Director General COAI Rajan S. Mathews said in a statement.

    “We welcome Reliance Jio’s entry to the digital world and wish them the very best. We also welcome Jio’s call to leading operators to work together. As a responsible operator, we will fulfill all our regulatory obligations as we have always done,” Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom operator in terms of subscribers, said in a statement, adding,”Over the last 20 years, Airtel has been contributing towards building a digitally enabled India and remains fully committed to and take leadership in supporting the government’s Digital India vision. We will continue to innovate and deliver best-in-class products and services to our customers.”

    Content aggregators and OTT players were also quick to hail Jio’s game plan. Zee Entertainment Enterprises MD and CEO Punit Goenka tweeted: “Mukesh Ambani’s #datagiri opens up a new chapter for the telecom industry and for the consumers! The data plans launched, which are cheapest across the world, are indeed a boon for content creators and consumers!”

    Viacom 18 Group CEO Sudhanshu Vats said in a tweet that Reliance Jio is truly changing the face of India’s telecom sector. “This is #digitalrevolution!” he added. Viacom18 is a joint venture between Viacom Inc and RIL-controlled Network18 group that operates several news and entertainment TV channels, including Colors and Colors Infinity, apart from other media properties.

    As many years back Reliance Telecommunications, part of an unified RIL under Dhirubhai Ambani, had created disruptions in the nascent Indian telecoms market, over a decade later his elder son, Mukesh, is replaying the disruption saga, albeit more digitally. Déjà vu indeed!

  • Ambani’s disruptive digital India Jio “datagiri” gameplan

    Ambani’s disruptive digital India Jio “datagiri” gameplan

    MUMBAI: The Mukesh Ambani-promoted Reliance Industries Ltd on 1 September unveiled ‘datagiri’ (dominace via data services) coupled with disruptive marketing tactics in classic Reliance style — all dedicated to Prime Minister Modi’s Digital India dream.

    And while Ambani enumerated the many features of Reliance Jio service, the group’s telecoms and value-added services company, for about 45 minutes in a speech at RIL’s AGM here, there was mayhem on the stock markets. Crores of rupees were wiped off in fortunes as share prices of incumbent telcos tumbled. An analysis by a business news paper estimated that many listed telecoms companies, including younger brother Anil Ambani’s Reliance Communications, lost over Rs 11,0000 crore on the markets.

    While the stock markets were witnessing a bloodbath, Ambani told his shareholders, “In the journey of time, there comes a few life changing movements. Our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s inspiring vision of a “Digital India” is one such movement. Jio is dedicated to realizing our Prime Minister’s vision for 1.2 billion Indians. Jio will give the `power of data’ to each Indian to fulfill every dream and to collectively take India to global digital leadership.”

    Sample some facts: free voice call for Jio customers; data at almost 1/10the the price of those prevailing now; no roaming charges; one million Wi-Fi hotspots around the country by middle of next year; 100 per cent VolTe network that allows simultaneous usage of voice and data services; all customers to get freebies of voice calls, data usage and  video streaming totally free 5 September to 31 December, 2016; a 4G network coverage of  18,000 cities and towns & and over 200,000 villages; student discount of 25% on data usage and a promised investment of about US$ 14 billion in the Reliance Jio ecosystem.

    “The Jio ecosystem stands tall on five fundamental pillars (of) best quality broadband network with the highest capacity; a world of affordable 4G smartphones and wireless IP devices; compelling applications and content; superior digital service experiences and affordable and simple tariffs,” Ambani said, sending the Indian telecoms consumers, reeling under indifferent services provided by the present from incumbents, into a tizzy and queuing up for a Reliance Jio connection that has plans to cover 90 per cent of India’s population y March 2017.

    Jio’s suite looks compelling. Apart from a state-of-the-art pan-India digital services business and fixed and wireless broadband connectivity offering superior voice and data services on an all-IP network, Jio will also offer end-to-end solutions that address the entire value chain across various digital services in key domains such as education, healthcare, security, communication, financial services, government-citizen interfaces and entertainment.

    According to reports, the company filed its tariff plans with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on 1 September 2016.

    Reliance Retail Ltd, another subsidiary of RIL, has introduced a slew of affordable 4G LTE smart-phones under the LYF brand, starting at Rs. 2,999. More feature-rich models will be available at progressively higher price-points like Rs. 3,999, Rs. 4999 and so on. The company has also tied up with smart-phone makers like LG, Samsung and Micromax to bundle Jio SIM and other free services.

    If all these were not enough, Ambani announced setting-up of the a venture capital fund, where Jio will work on creating Jio Digital Entrepreneurship Hubs in key cities and towns of India. The Jio Digital India Start- up Fund has set aside Rs. 5,000 crore to be invested over the next five years.

    “In this era, if you are not digital, and if you don’t have globally competitive digital tools and skills, you simply will not survive. You will get disrupted. You will be outcompeted. You will be left behind. You will become irrelevant. India and Indians cannot afford to be left behind. Today, India is ranked 155th in the world for mobile broadband Internet access, out of 230 countries,” Ambani elaborated, adding that Jio services are aimed at bringing India at par with developed telecoms market.

    If things work out as planned, then India’s broadcast ecosystem can start seeing an even great shift in consumption of video on mobile handsets, smart TVs, and on on-the-go devices.

    “Clearly, the data plans could lead to a price war in the segment with others being forced to follow suit,” says an industry observer. “All this is good for the consumer as prices will only head further south and the more they do, the more video will be consumed digitally. Which is fabulous for the OTT ecosystem that is currently being nurtured by independents and the broadcast majors.”

    Jio Welcome Offer

    The Jio ‘Welcome Offer’ provides an opportunity to every Indian to learn, try, customise and experience high quality digital services, without paying for the services up to 31 December, 2016 after which the applicable tariffs will apply.

    The company also proposes to use this time period to fine-tune its services and resolving interconnection issues with incumbent players.

    “In the last month alone, Jio customers suffered over 5 crore (50 million) call failures to other networks because of insufficient interconnect capacity,” Ambani said hinting at the all-out war being played out with incumbents accusing Reliance of not playing fair— an allegation tossed back by Reliance to competitors. “The onus is rightly on the incumbent operators not to misuse their market power by creating unfair hurdles,” Ambani reiterated.

    Jio may extend the period of free services in case Jio subscribers are not able to get adequate experience of seamless connectivity across the network due to point of inter-connect congestion, mobile number portability restrictions and if the quality of service parameters are not as per the benchmarked by desired by company management.

    Existing `invited’ or test users of Jio, who enrolled for the Jio Preview Offer, will be transitioned to the Jio Welcome Offer.

    Tariff Plans

    The Company filed  detailed tariff plans with TRAI. Ambani enumerated the following principles used for formulating the tariff plans:

    i)       Benefits of technology would be passed onto customers. All domestic voice calls for Jio customers will be absolutely free, across India and at any time. Domestic roaming charges will not apply in Jio tariffs.

    ii)      Data tariffs have been made highly affordable, with full transparency, without any associated conditions. The company is offering the lowest LTE data rates in the world. Additionally, it would offer unlimited night time LTE data.

    iii)      The Jio-Apps bouquet, which is worth Rs. 15,000 for an annual subscription, will be available complimentary for all active Jio customers up to 31 December 2017. This has been done to make digital life available to everyone.

    iv)  A special student discount offer, with 25% more data on the main tariff plans, would be offered to all students.

    v)  Jio has introduced a simple tariff structure with only 10 main plans, designed to fit every budget, as against the 22,000 tariff plans prevailing in the country today.

    These are summarised here:

    public://Untitled-2_1.jpg

    Industry Reactions

    An official statement from British telecoms giant Vodafone India said, “We have always offered great value to our customers, backed by excellent customer service, a nationwide presence, and Vodafone SuperNet, our best network ever. We will continue to do so for our hundreds of million customers across the country.”

    Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), an apex body of telcos in India, which had gone public over differences with member Reliance Jio taking the war of words to the Prime Minister’s Office, welcomed the announcements.

    “Reliance Jio is a valued member of the COAI. We wish to congratulate them on the announcement of the launch of their services. As a valuable member of the association, we welcome them with great warmth and applaud the bold vision of Mukesh Ambani and the innovation he proposes to bring to the industry,” Director General COAI Rajan S. Mathews said in a statement.

    “We welcome Reliance Jio’s entry to the digital world and wish them the very best. We also welcome Jio’s call to leading operators to work together. As a responsible operator, we will fulfill all our regulatory obligations as we have always done,” Bharti Airtel, India’s largest telecom operator in terms of subscribers, said in a statement, adding,”Over the last 20 years, Airtel has been contributing towards building a digitally enabled India and remains fully committed to and take leadership in supporting the government’s Digital India vision. We will continue to innovate and deliver best-in-class products and services to our customers.”

    Content aggregators and OTT players were also quick to hail Jio’s game plan. Zee Entertainment Enterprises MD and CEO Punit Goenka tweeted: “Mukesh Ambani’s #datagiri opens up a new chapter for the telecom industry and for the consumers! The data plans launched, which are cheapest across the world, are indeed a boon for content creators and consumers!”

    Viacom 18 Group CEO Sudhanshu Vats said in a tweet that Reliance Jio is truly changing the face of India’s telecom sector. “This is #digitalrevolution!” he added. Viacom18 is a joint venture between Viacom Inc and RIL-controlled Network18 group that operates several news and entertainment TV channels, including Colors and Colors Infinity, apart from other media properties.

    As many years back Reliance Telecommunications, part of an unified RIL under Dhirubhai Ambani, had created disruptions in the nascent Indian telecoms market, over a decade later his elder son, Mukesh, is replaying the disruption saga, albeit more digitally. Déjà vu indeed!

  • Reliance Jio declares readiness for 4G launch; imports IPTV STBs

    Reliance Jio declares readiness for 4G launch; imports IPTV STBs

    MUMBAI: The Reliance Jio juggernaut is getting ready to enter the next phase. According to the Q1 2017 presentation Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) made to investors over the weekend, Relaince Jio’s Preview Offer for its 4G LTE services tests phase is doing very well.

    Reliance Jio officials announced that the company is ready to roll them out nationally, apart from four circles (these will take six to eight weeks) which were awarded to it on 6 July.

    It said that its network is available over 18,000 cities and more than 200,000 villages in the 2300 MHz/1800 MHz band.

    The company stated that its JioLyf Preview Offer is now being expanded and has attracted 1.5 million plus users to it. Each subscriber is consuming 26GB and speaking for about 355 minutes each month.

    Reliance Jio revealed that there has been a strong uptake of all the services it has been offering, considering the humungous data consumption. Among the ones that are popular is Jio Play offering 300+ channel (30 of them HD) across 15 languages in 10 genres, offering seven day catch up TV with pause and play and personalization features. The others that are gaining in popularity are JioOnDemand, (100,000 hours of HD-ad free movies and trailers), JioBeats (million plus songs in 20 different languages), JioXpresNews (500 plus content publishers) and JioMags (5,000 magazine plus issues across 15 categories and 10 languages).

    According to the RIL presentation, the company has set up a 100,000 strong retailer base to sell its LYF devices, which include Flame, Wind, Water and Earth priced between Rs 2,999 and 19,999. Another 500,000 outlets for SIM and recharge sales have been signed up.

    Last week Reliance Jio extended its Preview Offer to select Samsung Galaxy Phone users and it is now expected to allow IPhone 6, and 6S users to be able to sign up for it too by next week.

    Observers expect Reliance Jio to levy a data usage fee much lower than the 0.5 p per 10 kb – that has been talked about so far – when it launches. A commercial launch date that is being talked about is 15 August.

    Additionally Reliance Jio has also imported 15,000 IPTV set top boxes from Vietnam earlier this month, according to reports.

    The boxes reportedly have a price tag of Rs 5,500 and are an indicator that the company is possibly readying to introduce its fibre to the home services (FTTH) and could start delivering IPTV to customers in the not too distand future. All that subscribers have to do is download the JioPlay and JioOnDemand Apps to tune into content that could rival that offered by many other cable operators and DTH operators. Reliance Jio already has a national MSO licence. Pricing plans have not been revealed as yet, but expect them to be competitive.

    RIL reported a turnover of Rs 71,451 crore with a net profit of Rs 7,113 crore. in Q12017.

  • Reliance Jio declares readiness for 4G launch; imports IPTV STBs

    Reliance Jio declares readiness for 4G launch; imports IPTV STBs

    MUMBAI: The Reliance Jio juggernaut is getting ready to enter the next phase. According to the Q1 2017 presentation Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) made to investors over the weekend, Relaince Jio’s Preview Offer for its 4G LTE services tests phase is doing very well.

    Reliance Jio officials announced that the company is ready to roll them out nationally, apart from four circles (these will take six to eight weeks) which were awarded to it on 6 July.

    It said that its network is available over 18,000 cities and more than 200,000 villages in the 2300 MHz/1800 MHz band.

    The company stated that its JioLyf Preview Offer is now being expanded and has attracted 1.5 million plus users to it. Each subscriber is consuming 26GB and speaking for about 355 minutes each month.

    Reliance Jio revealed that there has been a strong uptake of all the services it has been offering, considering the humungous data consumption. Among the ones that are popular is Jio Play offering 300+ channel (30 of them HD) across 15 languages in 10 genres, offering seven day catch up TV with pause and play and personalization features. The others that are gaining in popularity are JioOnDemand, (100,000 hours of HD-ad free movies and trailers), JioBeats (million plus songs in 20 different languages), JioXpresNews (500 plus content publishers) and JioMags (5,000 magazine plus issues across 15 categories and 10 languages).

    According to the RIL presentation, the company has set up a 100,000 strong retailer base to sell its LYF devices, which include Flame, Wind, Water and Earth priced between Rs 2,999 and 19,999. Another 500,000 outlets for SIM and recharge sales have been signed up.

    Last week Reliance Jio extended its Preview Offer to select Samsung Galaxy Phone users and it is now expected to allow IPhone 6, and 6S users to be able to sign up for it too by next week.

    Observers expect Reliance Jio to levy a data usage fee much lower than the 0.5 p per 10 kb – that has been talked about so far – when it launches. A commercial launch date that is being talked about is 15 August.

    Additionally Reliance Jio has also imported 15,000 IPTV set top boxes from Vietnam earlier this month, according to reports.

    The boxes reportedly have a price tag of Rs 5,500 and are an indicator that the company is possibly readying to introduce its fibre to the home services (FTTH) and could start delivering IPTV to customers in the not too distand future. All that subscribers have to do is download the JioPlay and JioOnDemand Apps to tune into content that could rival that offered by many other cable operators and DTH operators. Reliance Jio already has a national MSO licence. Pricing plans have not been revealed as yet, but expect them to be competitive.

    RIL reported a turnover of Rs 71,451 crore with a net profit of Rs 7,113 crore. in Q12017.