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.
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.