>One executive at Jio already confirmed they use DPI to monitor traffic on their networks,

Most ISP's worldwide do this, with varying levels of competency. Some provide the data for advertising, others use it for providing specific features/packs/traffic control.

Not excusing Jio, but I'm quite certain AirTel does this too (they had Sandvine many years ago), and other ISP's have trialed this technology in India as well.

> a person who literally is the Government in India

Out of the loop: can you clarify what you mean by this?

It's mainly due to his disregard for any rules that may exist.

The telecom regulator in India bent rules in favor of Jio: https://m.economictimes.com/news/economy/policy/vodafone-gro...

Rs 11,000-Crore ONGC (state owned oil and gas corp) Gas Shifted to Reliance Industries Fields: https://www.ndtv.com/business/rs-11-000-crore-ongc-gas-shift...

They literally took out full-page advertisements with Modi's image on it: https://thewire.in/economy/modi-reliance-jio-advertisement

You are over-blowing his control: My quick search brings following two things which is opposite to what this thread is claiming.

1. Reliance Jio may not be pleased with govt's spectrum moratorium to telcos: https://www.businesstoday.in/sectors/telecom/why-reliance-ji...

2. India Trying to Stop Reliance From Selling Assets, Times Says: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/india-trying-to-stop...

Telecoms in India are in a tremendous amount of debt. So much so, Vodafone and Idea had to merge but still they have immense financial problems. They are asking for the moratorium because Jio gave away their services for free, undercutting every player there is and the telecom regulator did nothing about it. WRT your first link, it was posted on November 21, 2019. This year the Supreme Court ordered the telecoms to pay their dues: https://m.economictimes.com/industry/telecom/telecom-news/sc...

As to your second link (Dec 23, 2019), yes, the Govt. did try to stop the 20% sale to Aramco, but "Aramco officials and bankers on the deal have been working at Reliance’s offices in Mumbai" says otherwise: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-18/reliance-...

Regarding telcos dues, AFAIK those companies have been avoiding the dues for decades and they must be held accountable some day isn't it? I can't comment on whether or not TRI should have intervened when JIO started offering free services - if it was allowed as per the regulation intervening by TRI could have given a message that it was acting for protecting existing players and if it wasn't allowed by regulations, Telcos would have gone to court.

Regarding the on-going talks of selling asset, since court has already ordered Reliance to reveal assets, they just can't do away with whatever is the liability set. Indian court system is not a joke.

My original point was that Reliance or Mukesh do not rule India; yes they are clever and do lobbying as any other capitalist does but they don't control the nation or gov.

You should really read into how Jio got their license and rules were repeatedly bent to favor them.

https://caravanmagazine.in/reportage/government-helping-reli...

It was on the TV too everywhere. All the damn time.

> The telecom regulator in India bent rules in favor of Jio

It's the Vodafone group CEO that's accusing TRAI of favoring Jio. They had a free run charging exorbitant data prices for a good time. No wonder these accusations are coming from Vodafone.

> Rs 11,000-Crore ONGC (state owned oil and gas corp) Gas Shifted to Reliance Industries Fields

This was fought in courts and eventually an international tribunal favored Jio.

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/govt-moves-delhi-h...

https://www.businesstoday.in/current/corporate/big-victory-f...

> They literally took out full-page advertisements with Modi's image on it..

What does this even mean? Even PayTm issued full page ads with Modi's image. Are they running the government too?

Honestly, Vodafone should be calling out Jio- they’re going to die because of it.

Jio has had some eye opening advantages-

Jio abused the stress test period for their network and essentially launched their service for free saying “join Jio, next few months free! (Fine print, this is technically a stress test.)

The way the auction for spectrum was conducted was magical- they had a front company With impressive bureaucracy wrangling power.

The stench of malfeasance is strong here.

That said fundamentally this is an issue that relates to the death of competition in the market.

Since the bungled SC auction verdict destroyed a vibrant telecom market, we’ve dropped to a triopoly- and heading fast to a duopoly.

What is sad is that the previous governments had done a truly impressive job of threading the economic needle when it came to designing a telecom market with competition.

Indian telecom was a boon to its impoverished customer base. Now it’s becoming a cabal.

> What is sad is that the previous governments had done a truly impressive job of threading the economic needle when it came to designing a telecom market with competition.

I beg to differ. I do understand Jio was quite aggressive in expanding its services and TRAI should have been more vigilant. But that still doesn't prove that they were working together in order to establish a monopoly. The pre-Jio telecom market was good for the telecom companies but it was horrible for the end consumers. The data prices were simply too high.

I’m sorry, but the facts are that india has (had) a remarkable telecom sector at inception.

The reason why I say this is because it’s VERY easy for the market structure to get flubbed and become only 2 or 3 firms which “compete”. (See america- invented the Internet, didn’t get the market right.)

India has some of the lowest, if not the lowest ARPUs in the world. The Indian telecom sector invented the 0 cost phone call (you give a missed call to a phone number, people call you back with offers)

Market structure is so important - you see it how the nascent Value added services market was destroyed by Indian telcos.

Back in the day one new area of innovation was VAS- but telcos were able to dictate the profit spread to VAS firms once they realized VAS was profitable. This killed the industry.

Telecoms tend towards rent seeking behavior (American telecoms say “this is the best service we can provide”, until google fibre turns up and magically those fibre installations get executed)

Data prices being high ignores the cost of calls and of infra issues the telcos were facing.

The spectrum auctions and the subsequent Supreme Court verdict destroyed our market - and there just isn’t the kind of market and economic acumen+Political power mix which will fix the market.

> I’m sorry, but the facts are that india has (had) a remarkable telecom sector at inception.

Maybe yes. But my previous point stands. What good is the sector when millions of Indians can't afford it? (from the perspective of data rates). Also the incumbents had all the time in the world to normalize data rates. But instead they chose to cartelize the industry and kept their profits up.

Again that perspective is wrong, because India is literally among the cheapest and often the cheapest country to buy data.

https://www.cable.co.uk/mobiles/worldwide-data-pricing/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/03/05/the-co...

So they didn't cartelize, and only recently after the insane noise over the 3g auction which fizzled out, did we lose that market.

We've now essentially cartelized (all remaining firms raised rates in tandem), and the few players left are also teetering with Vodafone considering leaving.

This means that we will likely see Jio, and Airtel left, with BSNL constantly being denuded.

Their profits are terrible, and the debt burden because of arrears means they need a rescue, or the future situation will become - impressively - even worse.

I wasn't confident in asserting data rates were low, but I've checked and Indian data rates, along with call rates are the lowest in the world.

The comments of the guy is classic case of subtle propaganda, passing opinion as truth for the western audience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukesh_Ambani is the most powerful person in India. More important than the Prime minister or President. He decides who becomes the prime minister, what news people will consume, etc. He owns everything from oil refineries, infrastructure companies, telecom companies, power companies, entertainment companies, news companies etc. He is the wealthiest person in India and one of world's richest.

Mukesh Ambani once said to the son of the previous BJP PM that Congress (the previous ruling party) is his own private shop.

https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/kya-congress-muke...

Well, he did openly support a Congress candidate in national elections.

I guess they mean Mukesh Ambani, who owns Jio and is the richest person in Asia, is a powerful player in Indian politics.

I believe Jack Ma is now the richest man in Asia. In fact, it’s probably really Ayatollah Khamenei :/

I somehow doubt Ayatollah Khamenei eclipsed the Saudis.

Good point!

Well Mukesh Ambani with a net worth of $50 billion, is the son of Dirubhai Ambani. Like father son too has all political parties in his pockets, be it the congress or BJP or other parties in India. Word is since Modi didnt coorperate in something with Mukesh, he literally sabotaged an alliance they had in the state of Maharashtra, to screw Modi's party over and stiched up an alliance of political rivals.

It's one thing of accusing him of cronyism. It's another to accuse him of swaying elections for political convenience.

Practically everyone would believe this story in real life. Such is the image of Mukesh Ambani in India.

He is not Warren Buffett type of billionaire, that is for sure.

Dhirubhai Ambani practiced Jugaad, something which was necessary in license permit Raj. Even average Indians understand the nuance in this and how difficult it was to conduct business in that era.

Let’s not call it jugaad. It was corruption and a lesson on how stupid laws force people to find an illegal way to do things that should be legal.

The reason reliance gets shit though is not because of corruption - Reliance is fundamentally a predatory firm.

Just a tangential story.

Few years back there was this 'news' that Mukesh Amabani's son had killed 2 person in a car accident. Now you can't find any link in any major news website

https://thewire.in/business/anant-ambani-memes-reliance-indu...

Jio's parent company is Reliance Industries which is run by the richest family in India. So the usual rich people bad is the reasoning here. In reality, all rules are applied to Jio just like they are applied to other companies. I know this because I have worked there for a while.

It means he is "literally" the government of India. What part was unclear? This is HN, where JavaScript framework enthusiasts and css programmers philosophise and are experts on everything. Don't try to make too much sense

(Let's assume)

You have followed US policy making, lobbying and stuff like how a coccus of ultra rich people/execs are actually running the Govt from behind the curtain and all that. So when you read all that that usually means the groups do that to different parties i.e maybe one group does that to the republicans and another to the democrats.

(Now enter India)

This guy alone pretty much controls the Govt of India and its decisions irrespective of the party, more so with this current right wing Govt (they are like family).

If you read a bit, there are Govt decisions that look like this:

Let's say there are couple of shops in a village. One of those is billionaire's shop. This is a very famous village market among neighbouring villages. Business is good, especially at night (some famous fair/shrine or whatever). There's the huge high central light in the village square - this is the only light that keeps the market area lit. Now the village head decides he needs to shift the light to a better location so that it will be used even better, especially for the nightly shopping. Fair. Great idea! So he makes a declaration that the village assembly has taken an unanimous decision to move the light to the inside of billionaire's shop so that it is better for the villagers and all the shop keepers in the village. And the best part is the villagers cheer this decision and run after anyone who even has a doubt about this decision let alone an objection.

However if the next time this right wing Govt loses (which seems highly unlikely the way this party/Govt has consolidated power) he might be in trouble but I doubt that would be something he can't handle or hasn't handled before.

Sonia Gandhi literally uses Reliance Jets for her personal sojourns. You are dreaming if you think Mukesh Ambani and Congress are antithetical, in fact funnily i would argue he is closer to the Congress dispensation than BJP.

Where did OP say anything about Congress vs Ambani?

At best he hinted that Ambani is closer to Modi which is not that unexpected. Of course, no government has ever been 'unfriendly' to Ambani. They are all benefiting from one another.

Ambani is losing his wealth and person who benefited the most during this time is Adani who is going to surpass ambani in wealth.

The same old tired Illuminati/Soros/<Generic Rich Businessman owning the government> spiel repeated in all the countries across the globe.

Airtel isn't good either. There are no real options anymore. Bsnl is terrible where I live. For a lot of people, that's a reality. They can't move.

There's BSNL. Their 4G services are currently better than Jio and Airtel in my city. And they provide better connectivity in rural and remote areas.

BSNL is about to go bankrupt as well.

They were offered the 4G spectrum at 2016 prices but even then they couldn't pay their employees' salaries anymore so the Govt. had to step in to pay for their voluntary retirement scheme, which 78,000/50% of their employees opted for.

Won't happen, even if Ambani's and others are lobbying for it. BSNL is required for secure government and military communication.

and Ambani owns the govt...

Ambani owns jack shit. These kind of low denominator strawmans do not lead to a healthy discussion. Please keep it to yourself or go to a community that welcomes it.

I will give you a datapoint, among many. The Indian govt. recently awarded a critical contract for modernizing the Indian Air Force to a company owned by Anil Ambani who is the brother of Mukesh Ambani, owner of Jio. The Anil Ambani (who has since declared bankruptcy) company had zero experience in defence or aeronautics, yet it was chosen over India's state owned HAL which has decades of aeronautical expertise.

This is incorrect. You are mixing two separate (but related) things.

Under the terms of the original Rafale deal[1], HAL was supposed to manufacture/assemble Rafale aircraft in India. This deal never materialized.

A new deal was made under whose terms, Dassault and others were to supply 36 Rafale aircraft in fly-away condition in return to which, they were to invest 50% of the cost of the deal (or about €3.9 billion) back in India, under an offset clause.

Of this €3.9 billion, €100 million was awarded [2] to Dassault Reliance Aviation limited as an offset contract to manufacture components for a passenger aircraft (Dassault Falcon 2000). This was a decision by Dassault, not the Government of India.

There were about 30 offset partners among which Reliance was one. This contract was worth about 3% of the entire investment under the offset clause.

So Reliance was not "chosen over" HAL.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_MRCA_competition

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafale_deal_controversy

All the petitions regarding wrongdoings in the deal were dismissed by the Supreme Court. The reason cited was that it was not the government who was responsible to choose an Indian partner for the “offset clause” of the deal, it was Dassault who entered into a JV with Anil Ambani’s company.

>The reason cited was that it was not the government who was responsible to choose an Indian partner for the “offset clause” of the deal, it was Dassault who entered into a JV with Anil Ambani’s company.

Because the Indian govt. forced Dassault to deal with Ambani. We know this because the French President literally said so.

“We did not have a say in this,” Mediapart quoted Mr Hollande saying. “It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice. We took the interlocutor that was given to us.”

https://m.economictimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/india-p...

https://www.ft.com/content/4e95c46c-bdb6-11e8-94b2-17176fbf9...

That's false. Anil Ambani's firm was chosen as an offset partner by Dassault, not by the Government. HAL wasn't interested in working as an offset partner.

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/rafale-deal-anil-ambanis-fir...

> The Anil Ambani (who has since declared bankruptcy) company had zero experience in defence or aeronautics

The company that you are talking about came into existence after Anil Ambani got stake in Pipavav Defense who already had experience working with Indian navy[1]. Anil Ambani's company has also signed an agreement with US Navy to repair their seventh fleet vessels[2].

1. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/defence/pipavav-de...

2. https://www.livemint.com/Industry/VZqdl90t3NiQZHl7ccylwK/Rel...

No wonder the Supreme Court threw all these allegations right into the bin.

Anil Ambani's firm was chosen as an offset partner by Dassault, not by the Government.

"Chosen". As in forced to chose by the Indian govt. We know this because the French President literally said so in an interview.

“We did not have a say in this,” Mediapart quoted Mr Hollande saying. “It was the Indian government that proposed this service group, and Dassault negotiated with Ambani. We did not have a choice. We took the interlocutor that was given to us.”

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio...

https://www.ft.com/content/4e95c46c-bdb6-11e8-94b2-17176fbf9...

No, chosen means "chosen" in this context. Reliance defense is only one of the many offset partners. There is a long list of them. Did the government strong-arm Dassault to go with all of them? Something tells me that Dassault will have much better things to do.

https://akm-img-a-in.tosshub.com/indiatoday/images/bodyedito...

> “We did not have a say in this,”

French government said that there was no pressure on them. In such an important matter, I am more likely to believe the government than a news agency I have never heard of.

https://www.livemint.com/news/india/rafale-deal-france-says-...

The myth of Anil Ambani unduly influencing Rafale has been debunked many times over. This was blown out of proportion by Mr. Rahul Gandhi as he wanted an easy issue for the election.

True. Our current PM Modi will dance to Ambani's tune. But killing BSNL isn't so easy ... They have lakhs of employees and with the poor state of indian economy I doubt if the government would be able to afford to pay the majority a proper severance package. Not to mention the unions and strikes they will have to deal with.

BSNL mismanagement is the output of decades of lethargy by successive Govts which prevented PSUs from becoming nimble. At least this Govt is trying even when it has limited fiscal options. This kind of extreme one sided scapegoating of PM to earn the approval of Western folks is highly condemnable.

Please don't spread propaganda of certain elite section in India about current gov just because they have lost control of India due to their own foolish policies and insatiable greed

There aren't any subscribers, so network load. Lol once you have users start popping we will see how BSNL will hold on.

BSNL has excellent infrastructure but is stuck with the old Babu staff that grew up with switch-based telephony tech and due to poor training don't fully understand the newer IP-based tech to which BSNL has migrated. That's why when it all works, it works superb - but if you have any issues, then support takes its own time in BSNL because only the newer, younger generation staff actually know how to fix stuff in the new systems.

I have used broadband from MTNL (another state telecom operator) back in the day. I still rue those days.

Yea was suprized the fact they were only boasting about their use of DPI as if it's something to be proud about.

And consumers and TRAI were giving Jio clueless looks or even cheering them.

Think I missed the hacked by NSA part. Can you elaborate please?

>who literally is the Government in India. Don't agree with that. Ambani is a Congress (opposition party) sympathiser and openly backed their Candidate in recently concluded elections. Agreed that capitalists are above politics, but what you saying "literally is the Government in India" is over enthusiastic and generic without bringing substantial reference. Remember his brother is almost bankrupt despite support from current and previous Governments. And BJP, the ruling party have made several rival entrepreneurs their patrons (Adani). Also since the economy grew substantially in modern times and donations are much more widely spread out, the political parties are not answerable to few handful Capitalists who have their own way unlike in the 80's politics. Ultra rich may have their say in policy decisions (lobbying), but it's an overkill to state they run the country.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/elections/lok-sabh...