[gischethans]

Airtel and Vi have announced new tariff plans which are expensive by 20-25% from the current plans. The new plans would be effective from 25 November for Vi and 26 November for Airtel. To insure against the hikes, it would be wise to recharge prepaid numbers right away. Yearly plans would be the best bet and the savings can be substantial when entire family's numbers are recharged. The validity gets adjusted accordingly in most of the unlimited plans.

[CliffHanger]

Jio messed up the entire ecosystem. I was not sure what CCI was doing when Jio was giving everything for free for almost a year, plain predatory tactics that killed several players. Now Jio is steadily increasing their prices, connectivity is not consistent either.

I will never go to Airtel for their sarkari style of running the company and never go to Jio for my primary number as they are not reliable and don't know how to run a B2C business for long, which leaves me to Vodafone whose services are steadily declining.

If there is a mess to come up, CCI and Jio should be held as the culprits.

[m8002?]

I still think Airtel is the best bet in terms of network coverage.

I have been on Airtel for 20+ years and haven't experienced issues with the voice (4G is another matter ). The BB is also decent in terms of speed and resolutions.

[Raghu M]

Originally Posted by CliffHanger

Jio messed up the entire ecosystem. I was not sure what CCI was doing when Jio was giving everything for free for almost a year, plain predatory tactics that killed several players. Now Jio is steadily increasing their prices, connectivity is not consistent either.

I will never go to Airtel for their sarkari style of running the company and never go to Jio for my primary number as they are not reliable and don't know how to run a B2C business for long, which leaves me to Vodafone whose services are steadily declining.

If there is a mess to come up, CCI and Jio should be held as the culprits.

I would differ here. Just imagine a world without Jio. The WFH would be simply not possible with the outrageous charges Airtel used to charge and not to mention the unknown and hidden charges. Airtel was/is a master at quoting a price and simply increasing it without proper reason. How would it be to buy 800 MB of data for 345/-? Jio brought every company to it's knees. The unlimited packs, insanely cheap prices wouldn't have been possible without Jio. If there is anything good that has happened to the telecom industry it is the entry of Jio. Connectivity is not a topic to debate here. Airtel has the worst connectivity in Hyd. Can't comment on the other service providers.

[RavSam]

Originally Posted by CliffHanger

Jio messed up the entire ecosystem. I was not sure what CCI was doing when Jio was giving everything for free for almost a year, plain predatory tactics that killed several players.

So you were OK with paying Rs.250 for 1GB of data for a month at 3G speed?

I mean unless anyone was working with the competitors or had invested in their stocks I see absolutely no reason for why Jio shouldn't have done what they did.

Please visit rural areas and see how almost everyone now uses the smartphone and internet which would definitely have taken a lot more years if it hadn't been for Jio.

If the predatory pricing was for benefit for the masses then no need to get angry. Jio didn't take money out of your pockets and you were free to stick with any operator of your choice.

Airtel, Vodafone, Idea's pricing wasn't predatory but their prime prey was us, the consumers! I would not have thought I would be able to play Youtube videos on phone to kill time without much of a data scare some 6 years ago.

Live (Jio) and Let Live (Jeene Do)!

[CliffHanger]

Originally Posted by Raghu M

I would differ here. Just imagine a world without Jio. The WFH would be simply not possible with the outrageous charges Airtel used to charge and not to mention the unknown and hidden charges. Airtel was/is a master at quoting a price and simply increasing it without proper reason. How would it be to buy 800 MB of data for 345/-? Jio brought every company to it's knees. The unlimited packs, insanely cheap prices wouldn't have been possible without Jio. If there is anything good that has happened to the telecom industry it is the entry of Jio. Connectivity is not a topic to debate here. Airtel has the worst connectivity in Hyd. Can't comment on the other service providers.

Short term - probably yes! Long term - let's see. If the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Knowing Reliance, I'm sure they are here for fat profits.

If they had good intent, they would not have given everything for free to remove competition, they would have given everything at fair pricing, which according to them was quite low in itself. They plainly used predatory tactics and financial might, while CCI was watching it like a sitting duck.

[Raghu M]

Originally Posted by CliffHanger

Short term - probably yes! Long term - let's see. If the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Knowing Reliance, I'm sure they are here for fat profits.

If they had good intent, they would not have given everything for free to remove competition, they would have given everything at fair pricing, which according to them was quite low in itself. They plainly used predatory tactics and financial might, while CCI was watching it like a sitting duck.

Agree to your points partly. They knew that even if they gave a lot for free, they would take a big market share and eventually break even. I am wondering what stopped Airtel from doing it? Why did they price the broadband and internet services at such high cost. It damages the industry by not making it convenient for small companies and individuals to have access to data. I am happy Jio entered the market and every other player had to reduce prices. If the customer benefits at the end of the day, that is good news.

As soon as Jio gave those killer prices, Airtel reduced my broadband bill by over 70%. How was that not possible earlier? Eventually Jio will raise the prices was common sense but it set some really good standards in terms of pricing.

[CliffHanger]

Originally Posted by RavSam

So you were OK with paying Rs.250 for 1GB of data for a month at 3G speed?

I mean unless anyone was working with the competitors or had invested in their stocks I see absolutely no reason for why Jio shouldn't have done what they did.

Please visit rural areas and see how almost everyone now uses the smartphone and internet which would definitely have taken a lot more years if it hadn't been for Jio.

If the predatory pricing was for benefit for the masses then no need to get angry. Jio didn't take money out of your pockets and you were free to stick with any operator of your choice.

Airtel, Vodafone, Idea's pricing wasn't predatory but their prime prey was us, the consumers! I would not have thought I would be able to play Youtube videos on phone to kill time without much of a data scare some 6 years ago.

Live (Jio) and Let Live (Jeene Do)!

Just imagine if Tata sold their every car for free for a year, then at 1 lakh for another 2 years.

Yes, you will have a car at every place and probably kids racing their free cars to glory, happily. But what will happen next?

Already Chevrolet, Ford, Fiat, Mitsubishi, etc. are all gone, imagine now who else will be remaining and what you will be left with and what you will have for the future!

At least in this case, Tata is known for their ethics. But Reliance is never famous for that. Wrong hands controlling majority of important sectors is likely to lead to disasters. That's what CCI is for, check the track records for business entities and set the competition accordingly, like how the bank checks our history to give us loans.

Mods, please merge my posts.

[fuzzydealhunter]

To be honest I will not be surprised if Jio also raises prices in the next few days. Lets see.

[RavSam]

Originally Posted by CliffHanger

Just imagine if Tata sold their every car for free for a year, then at 1 lakh for another 2 years.

Yes, you will have a Tata car at every place. But what will happen next?

Already Chevrolet, Ford, Fiat, Mitsubishi, etc. are all gone, imagine now who else will be remaining and what you will be left with!

Mods, please merge my posts.

The thing here is cost and risk bracket! A switch from one provider to another doesn't seem as risky as when it would be with a car.

The Nano was the cheapest car when sold but people would not risk it for the image, style, safety or whatever other reasons.

Even when you are at a shopping mall like Dmart or something and you see an item being sold as buy 1 get 1 or 2 free, unless you see the value in it or see it as risk free, you would not buy it but rather buy something known with perceived quality (even if the lesser known was better) and risk free. Question is, would you trust it to get/buy it?

Here, when you are able to port from one provider to other, the risk is less. I have both Jio and Airtel and both of them have their own pros and cons. Predatory pricing works just for a short time, and it's not sustainable. Once Jio increased their pricing, many opted out or threw away their SIM cards when they compared price to its performance. The SIM being free was as easy to dump since you had not invested a lot to buy it so as to stick with it.

The best thing about Jio was it made people aware of the internet and trying out things using the internet without much of a monitory risk. Had Airtel, Vodafone and others priced their data sensibly to begin with, more people would have gave it a second thought.

1GB for Rs.250/30 days was really good for nothing! I really do not know what we could have achieved with that sort of pricing. Now that we are comfortable with the current sane pricing, we are thinking of the bad side of it. Yes, we see the bad side of Jio's pricing but the thing is, the good side is so much more that it outweighs the bad side.

[saisree]

So what about the Post Paid plans. Are they also increasing?

[Raghu M]

Originally Posted by RavSam

So you were OK with paying Rs.250 for 1GB of data for a month at 3G speed?

Live (Jio) and Let Live (Jeene Do)!

Perfect, exactly my points. I don't see how people were happy to think twice before even downloading a sticker on Whatsapp because it eats data. Now, everyone has a YouTube channel, courtesy insanely low broadband and internet prices.

[Funny]

The pricing table for Airtel and VI seems to be cut-copy-paste scheme. There isn't any significant difference in terms of plans among them. Only advantage would be in terms of network coverage where Airtel seems to have a upper hand.
Most of us already know by now that eventually we would end up with a duopoly in the mobile operator market (read as Airtel and JIO) which would enable them to increase the prices to very high levels to make good profits which they haven't been able to do yet. Those who are having dual or more SIM cards are the ones who will be affected a lot more since we have to recharge the lesser used SIM cards with significant amounts to keep them active

[dragonfire]

Originally Posted by CliffHanger

Just imagine if Tata sold their every car for free for a year, then at 1 lakh for another 2 years.

Yes, you will have a car at every place and probably kids racing their free cars to glory, happily. But what will happen next?

Its a door that swings both ways. Even with Maruti and Hyundai hogging all the market share, there is still a Kia or an MG coming and setting up their businesses and capturing market share.

If Tata captures all the market for itself and then increase the prices, whoever had to exit would come back.

If Tata captures all the market and still keep selling cars for cheap, then do we really care whether they have a monopoly? No.

Airtel responded to Jio not by just decreasing their prices, but by also improving their network and services. Vodafone got deficient, and that's why they suffered.

Competition is good, it rewards the better ones and kills of the bad ones.

[AZT]

Inflation hits everything so it was expected that telecom guys would raise tariffs sooner or later, expenses need to be passed down. Not good for the bottom of the pyramid but sadly thats the reality now.