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.

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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