Strong connections

The Interconnect Wars

Subterfuge, opacity and regulatory warfare will mark the next phase of Indian telecom

Rohin Dharmakumar, 10 Nov 2016

On September 1, Mukesh Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries, did something that was simultaneously belated but also unexpected. At the annual general meeting of his mammoth company, he announced the launch of Reliance Jio, his group’s mobile network in India.

On the back of a reported $22 billion investment in setting up Jio, Ambani vowed to upend the $50 billion telecom industry using free voice calls, zero roaming charges and aggressively priced data packs.

The launch was belated because Reliance paid over $3 billion for Jio’s core – the 4G spectrum over which it runs – in 2010.

AUTHOR

Rohin Dharmakumar

Rohin is co-founder and CEO at The Ken. He holds an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta and an engineering degree in Computer Sciences from the R.V.C.E., Bangalore.

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The Interconnect Wars