JIO'S INDIA

Jio's promise to enable lower onboarding costs on its 5G network could potentially accelerate digital inclusion in India. EPISODE #89

Dear Reader,

A very Happy Monday to you.

Last week Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) held its 45th annual general meeting (AGM). Like the one convened in the Cooperage Football ground in Mumbai in 1985, this too was a spectacle. Yes, the latter was virtual, aired simultaneously on Facebook, YouTube, Koo and Twitter, but was still a draw—especially with respect to what Mukesh Ambani had to share with his shareholders.

The RIL chairman’s big headline was of course the launch of Jio’s 5G operations this Diwali. And audaciously once again it promised to dare commercial boundaries and roll out “highly affordable fixed broadband services to hundreds of millions of locations in a very short period”, without compromising quality.

If you recall the launch of Jio in 2015, it caused unprecedented disruption with audaciously low data tariff plans. Rivals had to match it, causing an exponential acceleration in the country’s transition from limited landline connectivity to near universal coverage using cellphones. It is often described as a post-Jio world.

So this week I explore RIL’s latest promise on digital connectivity, which coincides with one of the most profound digital transformations already underway in India.

This week’s cover picture is a street view I came across. Thought it was a perfect metaphor for the blend of the formal and the informal economy in India.

A big shoutout to Gautam, Vandana and Aashish for your informed responses, kind appreciation and amplification of last week’s column. Gratitude also to all those who responded on Twitter and Linkedin. Reader participation and amplification is key to growing this newsletter community. And, many thanks to readers who hit the like button😊.

---

THE JIO BET

Last week Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) held its 45th annual general meeting (AGM). It was another first.

In 1985 the company stunned the investment community when it hosted its AGM in the Cooperage Football ground in Mumbai. Last Monday it chose to beam the event virtually, including on popular social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Actually the virtual spectacle was just a side show.

The RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani committed Jio to launching its 5G services this Diwali and then made probably his boldest promise ever:

“We will connect over 100 million homes with unparalleled digital experiences and smart home solutions.

We will catapult tens of millions of small merchants and small businesses to great heights, empowering them with cutting-edge, plug-and-play solutions delivered from the cloud.

We will provide millions of medium businesses with the same digital capabilities that were earlier available only to larger companies.”

Whether by intent or accident this commitment to digital inclusion converges with the rapid evolution of India’s digital economy—with its unique signature of inclusion, enabled by low onboarding costs combined with the monetisation of identity using Aadhaar.

Given that its main competitor, Airtel, is unlikely to sit idle, India is looking to maintain its record of being among the countries offering the cheapest data plans, thereby solving for one barrier to access.

Check out the brilliant graphic shared by Visual Capitalist on Twitter, especially the lower right hand corner. (I would recommend you subscribe to their newsletter to receive similar delights every day.)

Together this will give fresh wings to India’s digital economy, particularly the one based on the public digital architecture. Undoubtedly, it will expand the footprint of the inclusive digital commons forged in India. This is especially relevant when India begins to onboard its next 500 million.

The 5G Promise

According to the World Economic Forum, the scale of promise of the 5G powered economy is staggering.

“Fast, intelligent internet connectivity enabled by 5G technology is expected to create approximately $3.6 trillion in economic output and 22.3 million jobs by 2035 in the global 5G value chain alone.

This will translate into global economic value across industries of $13.2 trillion, with manufacturing representing over a third of that output; information and communications, wholesale and retail, public services and construction will account for another third combined.”

Similarly, a recent study undertaken by Deloitte for the Confederation of Indian Industry, the trade body, captures the potential of 5G for India.

• Data speed in 5G is expected to be around 10 Gbps (compared to existing speeds of 20-40 Mbps). Not only will it dramatically improve user experience it will also revolutionise mobile content;

• 5G network is being designed for less than 1 millisecond latency (or lag). Hence, in conjunction with IoT it will be the key technology choice in industries like automotive, medicine, manufacturing;

• 5G technology will move the processing ability of handsets to mobile edge/cloud, ensuring longer battery life;

• 5G in a Software-Defined Networking (SDN)/Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) environment will enable customised service delivery;

• 5G is expected to use higher frequency bands (30-300 GHz) which will provide better capacity, bandwidth scalability and lesser interference.

According to the study, 5G could spur the growth of India’s digital economy to $1 trillion—about a third of the size of the current GDP of India.

Post-Jio

Given its recent record there is every reason to believe in the disruptive claim made by Jio of its 5G rollout.

It is as Ambani said in his speech:

“With Jio 5G, we will connect every-one, every-place and every-thing with the highest quality and most affordable data.”

Telecom has always been a business priority for Ambani. However the split in the family business derailed these ambitions. Years later RIL revived its plans under Jio and made disruption its calling card by weaponising tariffs.

It forced its rivals to match their stride, leading to a surge in the onboarding of mobile broadband customers.

See the graphic below: the growth is simply staggering.

Addressing this year’s AGM, Ambani claimed that the Jio’s 4G network had expanded to cover 421 million mobile broadband subscribers—who consume 20GB of broadband data every month.

And then added:

“Within the next two months, by Diwali, we will launch Jio 5G across multiple key cities, including the metropolises of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Chennai. Subsequently, we plan to increase the Jio 5G footprint month after month.

By December 2023, which is less than 18 months from today, we will deliver Jio 5G to every town, every taluka, and every tehsil of our country.”

The India Way

If Ambani’s boast holds up and rivals match their strides then India will morph into a global powerhouse for 5G applications.

Most importantly these new high speed digital highways will spur India’s remarkable efforts to create inclusive digital commons developed around the open digital architecture of its digital economy.

As a regular reader (and viewer of the weekly Capital Calculus show on StratNews Global) you would have witnessed my constant refrain on this signature of India’s digital economy, especially its power of inclusion.

Unsurprisingly they find mention in Ambani’s speech at the AGM:

“Aadhaar – a common national identity for 1.3 billion Indians; Jan Dhan – a self-service bank account that has brought financial inclusion to over 460 million unbanked Indians, especially women;

Rupay – an indigenous payment card network with over 630 million card holders; UPI – one of the most accessible digital payment systems with a monthly volume of over 6 billion transactions;

and Ayushman Bharat – providing health coverage to over half a billion Indians.”

I am sharing below my most recent essay on the power of this ‘Data Democracy’ that India has forged by weaponising identity and then combining them with other public digital goods like UPI, CoWin (the platform that enabled seamless rollout of 2 billion jabs) to leverage the power of an individual’s data to generate unprecedented empowerment.

You can click the link below if you wish to re-read it.

DIGITAL SWARAJ

India’s efforts to create an inclusive digital economy are not going unnoticed.

Brad Smith, President and Vice Chair at Microsoft Corporation, who was in the capital last week, summed it up best at a public event.

Dubbing India’s tech story as “extraordinary”, he said:

“I look at the two years of the pandemic and I think that basically India has made about five years of progress in the last 24 months.

And in many ways, you've leapfrogged much of the rest of the world especially with India's data stack, with the identity layer, the payments layer, data for healthcare, and the like.

In a sense, I think you've created almost a new paradigm for the use of technology in these critical areas.”

And then added:

“I think India is already the second or third largest software economy in the world.

I think India is a software superpower, really, when you get down to it.”

In the final analysis it is apparent that Jio’s India promise only reinforces the country’s claims on forging a unique global standard for the digital economy. It is unlike the walled-garden approach of China, the big tech driven vision in the US or the European version defined around myriad laws limiting the ambitions of big tech.

In short the ‘India Way’ makes for a compelling story. And also the reason as to why Jio’s audacious promise is so important in India fulfilling these ambitions of digital inclusion.

---

Recommended Viewing

The latest weekly offering of Capital Calculus on StratNews Global was a conversation with Sanjay Anandaram picks up from where I left it above. That is, to explore the new calling card for India’s soft power: home grown solutions of scale for public good.

Sanjay, a co-founder of NICEorg or the Network of Indian Cultural Enterprises, dwelled so eloquently on the promise of India’s new soft power arsenal.

I am sharing the clip below, in case you missed the premiere last Thursday at 7 pm.

Last week there was another development. Brad Smith, President and Vice Chair at Microsoft Corporation and the author of ‘Tools and Weapons: Promise and Peril in the Digital Age’, visited India. Addressing an event hosted by the Observer Research Foundation, Smith laid out the contours of the emerging technology driven world; significantly he placed India centre stage in this story.

In fact, my conclusion to this week’s newsletter is drawn from Smith’s remarks at the event. I am sharing the clip below. Do listen in.

Hope you enjoyed both the offerings.

Till we meet again next week. Stay safe.