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Comment by catchmeifyoucan | Hacker News Reader

I'm from India. I can confirm this. It's because unlimited LTE data costs about rs700 per month or 10 dollars. It can be spotty at times - but it works. Mobile is by far the most used form factor. Search for "Jio" on your app store and you'll see a variety of apps like JioTV, JioCinema, JioNews etc.. That means free news, live tv and movies all for the price of a cell phone subscription. Jio is the name of the service provider. No surprise India has the highest data use - there's almost no need to buy a TV anymore to watch content. You could also imagine why it might be hard for Netflix, Spotify and Prime movies to compete in India - because those services are bundled out of the box (no secret pay walls and great quality) for the price of your cell service. The mobile revolution in India wasn't about the phone - it was about access to fast mobile data. India has the lead on this one. We're paying too much in America.

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> You could also imagine why it might be hard for Netflix, Spotify and Prime movies to compete in India

Till a certain extent. Netflix, Prime Videos, Hotstar etc have much more variety and higher quality and some are VERY AFFORDABLE. Prime videos and Hotstar (HBO, Game of thrones, Veep, Silicon Valley like shows) can be had for $14 USD per year EACH. So upwardly mobile Indians can subscribe to multiple OTT streaming services (I do Netflix, Hostart, Primve Video + Apple Music). For the price of one Spotify sub in US, you can subscribe to 5-7 music streaming services in India.

For the rest, Indian creators on YouTube have pretty much surpassed every big name streaming company. TVF, Timeliners etc have created content which resonates with 18-35 year olds on an emotional level. Netflix et al. will never have that emotional connect so easily.

Plus with Netflix, you can share an account with family members around the world (2 simultaneous streams) and with a premium account, which is only a bit extra, you can get 4 simultaneous streams. Technically 4+ households could share a single subscription to watch with a TV.

> Indian creators on YouTube have pretty much surpassed every big name streaming company.

I think T-Series would like a word.

In all seriousness I think the proliferation of independent content creators is incredible. Maybe content is of lower quality, but it's more fun.

T-Series is not comparable to TV Shows. Yes, it has more subscribers on youtube but it doesn't have that stickiness and loyalty that channels live TVF, AIB (did?), Timeliners etc have.

TVF created a series set in 90s India which resonated with the current late 20s crowd so well that it spread like wildfire. If tomorrow, TVF would launch a movie, it will pretty much fill all the theaters in the country.

I'd argue that stickiness has transitioned to independent content creators. Feels like an individual can always be more honest than a corporation even if they're in it for profit.

I honestly feel the opposite. It is so much easier to manipulate individuals into shilling for your product than it is a large company.

I would trust Wirecutter reviews more than my favorite YouTubers’ reviews, for example. The livelihoods of the reviewers is not dependent nearly as much on how well they are paid by their sponsor.

PewDiePie v T-Series?

We're paying too much in America.

Thats mostly because of population density and sunk labor costs for building the infrastructure. Many parts of US are so sparsely populated that the densely populated regions have to subsidize some of the costs of buildding the infrastrcuture in those regions.

Canada is the worst when it comes to mobile services because they don't have cities like New York to subsidize the sparse regions. I mean the most dense metro area - Greater Toronto area has a population nf 4 million or so.

Any densely populated nation has very affordable mobile services. In my experience - UK, France, Singapore and SE Asia all have affordable mobile services.

Of course, no one can match Jio when it comes to price:feature parity. They have done what no other telecom provider in the world could do. It was and still remains one of the biggest bets in the telecom world and it wouldn't have been possible in any other country, except may be China.

If you look to Europe that does not hold. Sparse and mountainous countries like Sweden, Finland and Austria are the cheaper ones. It seems that it depends more on the population count of a country.

The population density argument really doesn't hold up.

Australia has a lower density and much much better plans.

SK, 6th in population density within Canada has the best rates because they have a crown-owned telecom provider SaskTel

Actually, most plans are way cheaper than that. Most people I know are on a $9 or $10 prepaid plan for three months of unlimited calls, messages and 2GB/day. It kinda covers most typical video usage.

>Actually, most plans are way cheaper than that. Most people I know are on a $9 or $10 prepaid plan for three months of unlimited calls, messages and 2GB/day.

Which providers?

Airtel, Vodafone.

Jio has INR349($5 USD) plan which gives 84 days of unlimited calling with 1.5GB data per data. For 399, less than $USD8 you get 2GB per day. Airtel also has a similar plan. This is fueling the data revolution

Thanks.

>1.5GB data per data.

Guess you mean per day.

Right, have tried this one.

Thanks, will check those out.

”there's almost no need to buy a TV anymore to watch content.”

You’re talking about access. People don’t buy a TV to get access to content, they buy one to watch the content, whether that’s via cable, OTA, streaming services, pirating, etc. Are you saying that people in India are just fine with consuming all of their TV and movies on a tiny phone screen?

I know some people who don’t have a TV, but they would rather just not watch TV/movies at all than stream it to their phone (other than maybe during a long commute or while on the plane).

a few points

- "watching TV" to more and more people is youtube and other online video

- a lot of people in the US don't watch video on their phone because they would blow their data plan in short order. Even unlimited plans throttle in various ways when you go over a certain amount.

Cell servicss like Jio bundle in live tv for free as well as on demand cinema. So the value prop to pay for a provider separately to get services on your TV is decreased. It's a separate cost for the same thing. So people are more likely to probably purchase new cellular connected tablets - rather than TVs.

In the US, my phone is on Wifi pretty much most of time during the day. When I am at work, my phone is on Wifi. When I get home, it is on Wifi as well. When I go to Starbucks, my phone connects to Wifi automatically. India has very limited wifi access. The overall data usage is still a lot higher in the US than in India.

This very much mirrors my experience with WiFi vs cellular.

https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/wifi_vs_cellular.png

Unless I am at home, I never go through the hassle of WiFi. I have unlimited data on both my phone and cellular equipped iPad.

Ah this must explain why india has the worst network congestion and reliability out of all countries on apps I’ve worked on (and they are fairly worldwide apps)

It also depends in the regular income. YouTube music costs $10 per month, I would have never paid that when I was in India, where I could just skip the ad & the cost of data for video YouTube is not much. About 3GBs daily, for Rs 284 for two months, or about $4 total, 4G where available, 3G other places. Before Jio launch, the data cost were same without the word DAily, so about $4 for 3 GB TOTAL in a month.

Damn. We’re paying too much in South Africa! It’s way more expensive here. But I guess the carriers charge what they can get away with. Data is also a lot cheaper in Kenya for the average person. Here in SA its still out of reach for many people.

I pay $60 for unlimited data and also get Direct TV Now with ATT. Also use a family members Netflix.

What is the cost for the service you mentioned in India in US dollars?

Most of the Jio services are free if you are on their SIM card. So no extra cost apart from paying for data.

So unlimited data for less then the equivalent of $60 US dollars?

Yeah like $10 or even cheaper.

GP is asking about unlimited data, not unlimited calls. I am not sure Jio or any other provider gives that for such a low rate as you mention, although they may give it for a higher rate (not sure). Also, not sure if the FUP (Fair Use Policy) is still in place (informally called by users by another #### name).

You can see the plans here - https://www.jio.com/en-in/4g-plans

One e.g. - 1.5Gb/day, 84 days, Rs 399. 1 USD =~ 70 INR, so that comes to around $6 for 3 months.

And this includes unlimited calling, and everyone uses WhatsApp for messaging.

$10 for like 3 months of cell service. And it's like they threw in Apple Music as well.

What gave so much confidence to Jio to discount that much? Did their flavor of party come to power during that time?

Also, India would have better date quality if market was open to foreign players without requiring Indian stakes.

India has very high density in many areas where these kind of data rates are possible and we all would be on 1gbps connections

Reliance (Jio's parent company) spent years laying down a fiber optic network in the country before they announced Jio. To get subscribers off their current plans they _had_ to provide extraordinarily low prices. When they first launched, they gave away about 4GB of 4G data per day for free for the first year to all new subscribers. This shook the market up so much that the congestion was in the process for procuring a Jio SIM as they were all sold out.

I think people on this thread are overstating the data quality problems. I don't live in India anymore but I still retain a Vodafone SIM card that I use when I travel back. On their 4G plan, I easily get 15Mbps, which is enough to stream full HD videos if you wanted to. 4K on the phone is not a requirement for most people as I don't know of any phones with full 4K displays in the market.

The market is actually doing very well, especially compared to North America (where I currently live).

And that doesn't answer my question about Reliance agreesively discounting data plans.

Reliance just like any other telecom operator was laying cables which they could even lease to other private players.

But what exactly gave them enough confidence to go ahead with Jio, a deep discounted mobile network.

> Reliance just like any other telecom operator was laying cables which they could even lease to other private players.

Jio's network infrastructure is far advanced when compared to other operations. They didn't just build it by keeping 4G in mind. It can support 5G and follow up generations without a lot of modifications. Incumbent operators had to upgrade their 2G/3G infra to support 4G. In fact, lack of 2G/3G service is a reason why Jio doesn't operate in Andaman & Nicobar islands where it's mandatory for operators to support 2G/3G service.

> But what exactly gave them enough confidence to go ahead with Jio, a deep discounted mobile network.

I would say it was access to funding and top-level infra. Not to forget, the industry was stagnant when it comes to high prices.

I guess I forgot to include the little fact that Reliance is the biggest conglomerate in India and it's owner is India's richest person. Even if Jio had crashed, it would have made a very small dent in Reliance's fortunes.

I included the fibre optic network because most of the other operators don't have a high capacity network like that across the country. Owning your own infrastructure allows you to undercut your opponents because you don't really have to ameliorate them to get access to their infrastructure.

>When they first launched, they gave away about 4GB of 4G data per day for free for the first year to all new subscribers.

That looks like an antitrust lawsuit waiting to happen. Or is Jio going to keep at it forever?

Why is a promotional discount anti trust waiting to happen?

I mean, in the US, Tesla is giving away promotional battery capacity for free, which they're taking away after a few months. That sounds more egregious than anything else.

And many cable providers give discounted rates for the first few months, after which the rate goes up.

> What gave so much confidence to Jio to discount that much? Did their flavor of party come to power during that time?

Not sure what kind of conspiracy you're thinking of. Jio is actually funded through Debt financing. Many Indian and non-Indian banks have given huge loans to Jio[1][2].

1.https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/stocks/news/rel...

2. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/banking/financ...

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