
India's richest man offers free 4G to one billion people - ZeljkoS
http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/06/technology/india-reliance-jio-4g-internet/
======
veeragoni
The 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-
idINKCN1...](http://in.reuters.com/article/reliance-telecoms-jio-
idINKCN11611V)

~~~
deepGem
I'm not clear as to what insights will DPI provide once data is encrypted.
What am I missing ?

~~~
newscracker
Not much for encrypted data, but they can still get metadata out of it (which
site you visited, how much traffic was exchanged relative to other sites you
visited, what times of the day you visited, which days of the week you
visited, usage patterns, etc.). For example, if you have a pattern of visiting
say, an Amazon store, that information could be useful to have rivals of
Amazon to target you with ads or special offers, even if they cannot find what
exactly you did on Amazon.

The voice calls are also on LTE (VoLTE), and a similar DPI scheme could be
used to get a lot out of that by recording and inspecting content and
metadata. Legality aside, if they're intent on mining data, there are millions
of people who wouldn't even know what http vs. https means or to use end-to-
end encrypted apps for calls, etc. (or probably not care as much). I'm not
implying that nobody will care, because there may be another prominent
movement (savetheinternet) like the one that helped block Facebook's Free
Basics initiative through campaigns and well crafted letters to the
authorities.

~~~
1024core
> Not much for encrypted data, but they can still get metadata out of it
> (which site you visited, how much traffic was exchanged relative to other
> sites you visited, what times of the day you visited, which days of the week
> you visited, usage patterns, etc.). For

Just use a VPN?

~~~
webtechgal
Well, yes, but unfortunately, of the billion+ people here in India, I doubt if
a significant percentage has even heard of a VPN, leave alone the matter of
knowing what it does or knowing how to go about getting and setting one up.

~~~
helthanatos
Or about paying for one

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amitutk
Wow, 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.

~~~
prplhaz4
Seems to be the equivalent of any "free - for a limited time" type offer that
most subscription-based services use as bait.

~~~
dingo_bat
Except the price after the free period is still 0.2x current rates from
competitors.

~~~
webtechgal
True, 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!! :-)

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otoburb
>> _" [...] 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-
techno...](http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-
technology/reliance-jio-launch-free-voice-calls-cheaper-data-tariffs-
announced-3007631/)

[2] [http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/bharti-
ai...](http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/bharti-airtel-
s-q3-net-profit-falls-22-116012800797_1.html)

~~~
thewhitetulip
If 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
er... isn't 599r somewhere on the order of $9 USD? I'd kill to get 20+ GB a
month for 9 dollars.

~~~
DarkLinkXXXX
Would you if you made 2 dollars a day, as the average Indian citizen does?

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personjerry
So 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
This 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
Mukesh 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.

------
maneesh
Straight up right out of The Kingsmen

~~~
jlebrech
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/)

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0xmohit
Unfortunate journalism.

Suddenly makes everything appear like an act of philanthropy.

------
gravypod
Something 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."

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grok2
With 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).

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hackaflocka
I 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.

~~~
JetSetWilly
Most western countries are the same. I live in Scotland, and quite near where
James Watt was born. That doesn't mean that I grew up around steam engines, or
that I have been exposed to steam engines through my life. Like most places,
the interconnectedness of global trade, plus the sheer complexity of modern
devices, means that most people have no exposure to manufacturing.

At one time, the town where I live was a full of Victorian manufacturing, with
factories clogging up every street. Few of those factories survive today. Both
my grandfathers worked in a local factory, which manufactured ball bearings
and other machined items. In their time, it employed a couple thousand people
on a huge site. Today, the company still exists, and still manufactures
products, but with far far fewer people (well less than 100 I think).

So the general population's exposure to manufacturing is far lower, as even
where factories still exist far far less labour is required so that general
cultural exposure is low.

~~~
hackaflocka
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I really think we're losing something by
not having this kind of knowledge more evenly spread out in the population.
There was a time when my near-ancestors could all stitch up a wound or re-set
a bone. Such first-aid was a necessary skill. That too is missing in the
population today.

------
devnonymous
FWIW, 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.

~~~
avinashv
There is no hatchet burying relevant to this: Mukesh and Anil's Reliances are
separate. Reliance Communications direct competes with Reliance Jio.

~~~
devnonymous
Uh huh? Tell me more please because what I read here :

[http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/reliance-
ji...](http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/reliance-jio-launch-
may-be-deferred-to-december/51522283)

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-4...](http://telecomtalk.info/ril-infotel-and-rcom-to-tie-up-
for-4g-wireless-broadband-services/81078/)

And some other things, which of course are unrelated and completely
coincidental:

[http://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/infrastruct...](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://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-04-23/news...](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-04-23/news/31387124_1_telecom-
towers-largest-tower-tower-arm)

~~~
witty_username
Competitors can still collaborate.

~~~
devnonymous
True. Although collaboration while holding on to hatchets is a bit
inconvenient. That's all I meant to imply.

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traviswingo
Lol this reminds me of Samuel L. Jackson in Kingsman.

~~~
candtoro
that was my first thought XD

