The way Jio was built and what challenges they faced trying to build a gigantic mobile operator from scratch and building it secure from day one are a story i'd like to read a book about, but I'm already glad he held a talk about it.
The most interesting part was their realization that there was nearly no "new & secure" hardware available they could buy off the shelf, most came with old unpatched versions of software, many had components that simply had no update functionality at all, some had but required manual onsite intervention for updates, just what you need when you want to connect one of the largest countries on this planet. This was not third-rate stuff from China, he was talking Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei... the name brands involved in this space.
Fascinating and astounding what went on at this time at Jio and i'm grateful that sometimes people that deeply care about these issues get into these positions and get to fight these demons.
How do you make money offering free deals?
They also are known for their ways with price competition. Even worse if you are an OEM, delayed payments are the norm.
all you need is a large chunk of money, or absurdly low-cost loans, or some govt "assistance", or a mix of these, to last until that "start making profits" line.
Some years ago I worked on a Unix/C/Oracle software project for VSNL, a public sector or quasi-government entity that was India's telecom carrier to/from abroad (V for the word Videsh, which means foreign country in Hindi). Worked onsite in their office in Mumbai, near the (Arabian) Sea coast, where international telecom cables probably come in. There was a huge telecom switch installed there. It was like the size of several really high refrigerators pushed together. First time I had seen one. Some Oriental-looking engineers were working on it (could have been from some Japanese company like Fujitsu or whatever, which might have been into that line of products - switches). I asked our VSNL contact there what the thing was, and he said it was the main telecom switch for connectivity between the outside world and India, and cost about INR 200 crore (IIRC).
INR 200 crore in USD (today's rates):
https://www.google.com/search?q=INR+200+crore+in+USD
Works out to about USD 28 million for that switch.
One advantage is that Jio was totally new to the market so they started with 4G networks directly. The connectivity, voice clarity and bandwidth was very good due to only-4G network. Other operators were are still working on 2G, 3G and 4G.
I had earlier worked for Jio for 5 years and I feel proud today that I contributed for the country - in allowing the easy access of data to public. I remember, before 6 years I used to get 1 GB data for Rs. 250. Today for the same amount I can nearly get 50 GB data.
My wife also worked for Jio and today is her last day. I feel very sad now.
In my experience, a lot of people I know switched streaming services instead of torrents. Amazon prime and Hoststar are quite affordable and have decent content now a days and people generally don't bother with the torrents as much as they did a few years ago.
Also, the quality of video and the user experience on Netflix is leagues ahead of Prime and Hotstar (in that order). Hotstar is very poor on technology and design. It only has its content catalog to lean on.
but there are things like free online leechers, telegram groups that freely share pirated content..
We've had major sites blocked in the UK for years but no one can keep up with proxybay.app and its endless rehosts.
It is not possible to get old movies this way tho...
[0] This has interestingly resulted in folks using Helo, Telegram et al to share pirated content and porn.
These plans are provided by the other major service providers.
Postpaid plans (contract plans) in India are ripoffs, comparatively.
[1] https://in.reuters.com/article/reliance-telecoms-jio/from-bi...
Majority of this utilization would be on Streaming, Torrent downloads etc etc, Also to note that , many of the calls made in India are VOLTE calls..