If India’s telecom story was a TV series, with each year an episode, 2020 felt like a season finale. Not just because the world seemed to be coming to an end, but because the plotlines from the last few years finally wound down to definitive conclusions.
A new pecking order has been decisively established. Reliance Jio is at the front of the pack, with Bharti Airtel gamely doing its best to keep pace. Vi, formerly Vodafone-Idea, is happy to still be in business, even if it is some way off the pace. Though their rivalry remains eternal, they have also found common ground—floor pricing and 5G spectrum pricing—to band together on.
