Discussion Vodafone might exit India

[Ashok Varma]

In a letter to the telecom minister Ravi Sankar Prasad, Reliance Jio, Thursday said that the government
We request the government to reject the COAI demand for financial relief on the Supreme Court judgment and their other outstanding liabilities including the spectrum payments and all operators should be mandated to deposit applicable amounts within the three months time period,
Jio to telecom minister: Reject the telcos’ financial relief demand - ET Telecom

 

[Esmail]

Those locked handsets are unethical. Where is TRAI? We are in the age where we will soon get port enabled dth. Here they are allowing carrier locked handsets. Where is customer's freedom? I am glad no one has introduced same.

There are ample unlocked Nokia 4G VoLTE enabled feature phones available in the open market, people are free to buy them instead of Jio phones. Not like Jio is forcing anyone to buy its locked handsets. The actual price of a Jio phone if unlocked would be north of 3000, the reason Jio is offering it for as low as 699 is coz it is subsidising the cost of the hardware in return for customer stickiness and longterm revenue which is standard global practice, nothing unethical about it.

 

[vikhyath]

Lol ...it was there.Idea Cellular was started as a joint venture of Aditya Birla Group with the AT&T and the Tata Group, ... At&t was launchd few yrs ago... I don't know exactly yr... But i have it sim ...then after few yrs at&t rebrand as Idea cellular......

Yes, the joint venture between AT&T, Tata & Birla was called as Batata. Later in 2002 they renamed it as Idea Cellular. In 2006 AT&T exited the entity & TATA (To launch their own CDMA based network Tata Indicom) sold their stake to Birla.

 

[vikhyath]

Once it was Hutch, their priority was customer satisfaction alone.

True Game Changers/Trend Setters In Indian Telecom

Hutch - Introduced 50p/min outgoing calls
Tata Docomo - Introduced 1p/sec outgoing calls
Jio - Introduced free outgoing calls (Now stated charging for IUC, to don't follow the fate of the previous trend setters )

 

[vikhyath]

BPL, Escotel, Spice also.
BPL taken over by Hutch (some loop Mobile rebranding in between).
Escotel taken over by Idea.
Spice closed down I think.

Spice was also acquired by Idea

 

[iDJ]

There are ample unlocked Nokia 4G VoLTE enabled feature phones available in the open market, people are free to buy them instead of Jio phones. Not like Jio is forcing anyone to buy its locked handsets. The actual price of a Jio phone if unlocked would be north of 3000, the reason Jio is offering it for as low as 699 is coz it is subsidising the cost of the hardware in return for customer stickiness and longterm revenue which is standard global practice, nothing unethical about it.

At first ₹699 is a temporary discount. And this IUC is what making these handsets unethical. You introduce a particular plan than increase as per your convenience with leaving your paying users helpless.

 

[JollyLNB]

AmbaniCom will not stop until it pushes Airtel and Vodafone-Idea into shutting down. See this video. Reliance Jio insists that there will be no problem if these two shut down as new players can enter. Absolutely unacceptable behaviour from AmbaniCom (my name for Jio).

'Airtel, Vodafone Idea shedding crocodile tears': Reliance Jio to COAI

Even IndiGo does not behave like this in the aviation sector though it is in a dominant position. It never wanted Jet to collapse. Here Jio wants Airtel and Vodafone to collapse.

We mean in terms of subscriber market share?
Subscribers we can even reduce by 50 million more. That’s ok. We want revenue, and very high-end customers, well-paying customers. People who buy Netflix, or Amazon Prime.

It is clear that all out of Jio, Airtel and Vodafone-Idea are unscrupulous. They will stoop to any level. Airtel wants to squeeze every last rupee from customers (saying this as an Airtel customer who fully agrees with this). It wants to charge more for services that Jio brought down the price of.

On the other hand Airtel and Vodafone-Idea are losing billions of dollars and need to save themselves in order not to close down like Jet Airways. But Jio wants them out of the market, and pretends there is no problem with the incumbents (including BSNL/MTNL) when they are bleeding billions.

It appears that Jio is all-powerful and has all the financial muscle it needs to push out everyone else. But the so-called victims are not entirely innocent either as Mittal (if not Vodafone) wants to overcharge as much as possible for Airtel to make profits. Here Jio seems to have the moral high ground in making services more affordable (or even possible in the first place), but it cannot force its competitors to shut down due to financial losses.

True Game Changers/Trend Setters In Indian Telecom

Hutch - Introduced 50p/min outgoing calls
Tata Docomo - Introduced 1p/min outgoing calls
Jio - Introduced free outgoing calls (Now stated charging for IUC, to don't follow the fate of the previous trend setters )

In 2010 it was common for telcos to charge 1p/sec rather than 1p/min. Videocon Mobile said that it would charge 0p/sec.

 

[WizarD]

Vodafone Idea plummets over 9% to hit 52-week low
Shares of Vodafone Idea on Thursday fell over 9 per cent in early trade after Care downgraded its rating citing the recent Supreme Court ruling on adjusted gross revenue (AGR) issue.Shares of the telecom operator slumped 8.66 per cent to Rs 3.48 apiece - its 52-week low - on the BSE. Similarly, the stock declined 9.2 per cent to Rs 3.45 on the NSE.

 

[Ashok Varma]

It is clear that all out of Jio, Airtel and Vodafone-Idea are unscrupulous. They will stoop to any level. Airtel wants to squeeze every last rupee from customers (saying this as an Airtel customer who fully agrees with this). It wants to charge more for services that Jio brought down the price of.

On the other hand Airtel and Vodafone-Idea are losing billions of dollars and need to save themselves in order not to close down like Jet Airways. But Jio wants them out of the market, and pretends there is no problem with the incumbents (including BSNL/MTNL) when they are bleeding billions.

It appears that Jio is all-powerful and has all the financial muscle it needs to push out everyone else. But the so-called victims are not entirely innocent either as Mittal (if not Vodafone) wants to overcharge as much as possible for Airtel to make profits. Here Jio seems to have the moral high ground in making services more affordable (or even possible in the first place), but it cannot force its competitors to shut down due to financial losses.


In 2010 it was common for telcos to charge 1p/sec rather than 1p/min. Videocon Mobile said that it would charge 0p/sec.

Finally Airtel wants as Premium Network like Netflix after Vodafone exit!

 

[Itsme...]

We can say how competition is great and all, but still we used to pay some 200-250 for 1 GB data(~Irrespective of network). So if an operator is unethical, not innovative and not in the mood to adopt the changing environment and new tech, then it is bound to fall. Here i am not saying that competition is not needed. I am just saying even with 5-6 cos, we have to pay a large sum for 1 Gb data. Compare to that we are now paying very less, even the cheapest in the world(With less telecos). So if in future jio will also behave like these airtel, voda, they will also have to shutdown their shop. That is the rule of market! So don't be emotional. Make good use of the all the benefits you are getting as a customer. And of course pay price for that.