Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Jio wants to connect next billion in India

Infrastructure and affordability barriers are being broken in India by Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani and his initiatives, a new survey said on Friday.  According to the survey by Booking Holdings, a growing affluence has lifted over a billion people out of poverty, creating a new middle class — in many countries for the first time — and driving a growth in consumer demand.  Asked which factors were driving, or were likely to drive, increased internet adoption, the respondents highlighted pull factors like the increased availability of high-quality infrastructure, improved affordability and better public understanding of the internet as factors that would drive increased uptake.

Asked which factors were driving, or were likely to drive, increased internet adoption, the respondents highlighted pull factors like the increased availability of high-quality infrastructure, improved affordability and better public understanding of the internet as factors that would drive increased uptake.

“This ties in neatly with the infrastructure — as opposed to the human — barriers, the removal of which our respondents identified as being key to unleashing the potential of the Next Billion.

“With projects such as the $35 billion investment in 4G by Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, these barriers are quickly coming down in India,” the report emphasised.

As on March 31, the subscriber base of Reliance Jio stood at 306.7 million. The average data consumption per user per month was 10.9 GB and average voice consumption 823 minutes per user per month.

“We at Jio are truly overwhelmed and proud to now serve over 300 million subscribers. The growth in data and voice traffic at this scale has been unparalleled,” Mukesh Ambani said.

Mukesh Ambani breaking all barriers to connect next billion

The average Jio customer data consumption per user per month was 10.9 GB and average voice consumption 823 minutes per user per month.

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For the survey, Booking Holdings surveyed tech experts and tech leaders in three markets — China, India and Indonesia.  Nearly 74 per cent respondents in India said internet access is a basic necessity.

One of the most heartening and economically significant impacts of the expansion of connectivity in Asia was the corresponding improvement in the lives of women and girls.

Nearly 79 per cent of respondents said gender was not a barrier to internet adoption in their country.

“Nearly 86 per cent said that increased gender equality would drive adoption and 91 per cent said greater digital participation would also improve gender equality in their country,” the findings showed.

By large majorities, the respondents expected their countrymen and women to benefit from digital inclusion in ways that would help them become more educated and more prosperous — allowing the connected to rise up the social ladder.

“This aspirational edge to gathering digital transformation of all three countries reveals a growing individualistic and entrepreneurial culture that would not be out of place in Silicon Valley,” the survey noted.

According to Glenn Fogel, CEO, Booking Holdings, much of this explosion of commerce and entrepreneurship is due to the growing availability and ease of internet connectivity in Asia.

“In India, the e-commerce market is expected to quadruple in size between 2017 and 2022 to a value of $150 billion… Asians are going online to sell and to shop,” he said.

Reference:
https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/mukesh-ambani-breaking-all-barriers-to-connect-next-billion/69277389

Will Reliance Jio overtake Bharti Airtel today to become India’s 2nd largest telecom operator?

By: – Published: May 6, 2019. Edited for clarity by Alan J Weissberger, IEEE Techblog Content Manager

The race to become India’s second largest telecom operator between Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio is still on.  With Airtel’s Q4 results due on Monday, it will soon become clear if Mukesh Ambani’s Jio will actually climb the ladder and outshine Sunil Bharti Mittal’s company.

With 29 crore wireless subscribers towards the end of February 2019, Reliance Jio has emerged as a tough competitor to many telecom operators in India. Considering Jio’s growth trend in the previous few quarters, it may even leave behind Vodafone-Idea, dethroning it as the current largest telecom firm in India.

While other telecom operators have mostly maintained a ‘lose’ or ‘barely growing’ trend on the subscriber base, Reliance Jio has been the only telecom which maintained a ‘gain’ streak throughout the year 2018.  For the QE Sep-Dec 18, Reliance Jio was the only private telco (along with PSU BSNL) to gain subscribers while both small and large players, including Vodafone-Idea, registered mostly negative growth. Jio had added close to 3 crore subscribers in that quarter, according to TRAI’s Indian Telecom Services Performance Report. In the year 2018, Reliance Jio has continued to add more than 2.5 crore subscribers every quarter.

Reliance Jio’s own reported user base tells a similar story. In its Jan-Mar 2019 quarterly results details, Reliance Jio reported over 30 crore subscribers at the end of March. Bharti Airtel is due to report its March-end user base today, along with its quarterly results.

NOTE: Crore is an Indian term that =ten million; or = 100 lakhs, especially of rupees, units of measurement, or people.

Reliance Jio vs Airtel vs Vodafone Idea: Detailed descriptions of plans here. Check which is best for you

Reliance Jio vs Airtel vs Vodafone Idea: Who will emerge as India’s largest telecom operator?

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As of February 2019:

  • Vodafone-Idea had over 40 crore users (wireline and wireless combined),
  • Bharti Airtel had over 34 crore users.
  • Reliance Jio was strong with a little less than 30 crore subscribers (TRAI figures). Vodafone-Idea leads in terms of market share for wireless subscribers with 34.58% share.
  • Bharti Airtel’s market share is 28.75%, while Reliance Jio is inching closer with 25.11%.

In terms of wireline market share, BSNL leads with more than half the subscription hold, followed by Bharti Airtel at 18.95%. For broadband services, Reliance Jio topples all other telecom operators with a 54% share in the market.

https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/will-reliance-jio-overtake-bharti-airtel-today-to-become-indias-2nd-largest-telecom-operator/1569268/

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Update- May 21, 2019:  Jio adds 9.4 million customers in March, Airtel, Vodafone-Idea lose

: Reliance Jio has added 9.4 million customers while India’s teledensity has declined 1.82% to 90.11%, from 91.86% in March 2019 with active wireless subscribers reaching 1,021.75 million, the sector regulator in a finding Tuesday said.

Jio has added 9.4 million users in March to take its user base to 307.7 million, while Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel lost 14.5 million and 15.1 million customers, respectively, to take their subscriber bases to 394.8 million and 325.2 million during the same period, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said.

Bharti Airtel had 27.99% subscriber market share, Vodafone Idea 33.98% and Jio had 26.40% market share as of March 2019.
Vodafone Idea’s active use base, or VLR, was 93.27% of its overall subscribers, while Reliance Jio was at 84.04%. The finding revealed that Bharti Airtel has the maximum proportion – of 100.82% – of active wireless subscribers in the month of March 2019.

In the broadband segment, Vodafone Idea had 19.57%, Bharti Airtel 20.35% and Reliance Jio had 54.45% market share as of March this year.

The monthly decline rates of urban and rural subscription stood at 0.90% and 2.98% respectively in March 2019, according to Trai.

The regulator added that in March, 5.30 million subscribers submitted their requests for Mobile Number Portability (MNP), and the cumulative porting requests have increased from 423.11 million in February to 428.40 million at the end of March 2019.

https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/jios-adds-9-4-million-customers-in-march-airtel-vodafone-idea-lose-trai/69430347

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References:

Reliance Jio may overtake Vodafone Idea & Airtel to become India’s largest telecom firm by 2018 year end

 

Reliance Jio Blankets India with Inexpensive 4G Service; Where are the Profits?

 

Samsung deploying small cells in large volumes for Reliance Jio in India

 

Samsung deploying small cells in large volumes for Reliance Jio in India

Samsung Networks is deploying small cells in large volume for indoor coverage for Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio, which is set to have 99% population coverage soon in the country, according a Samsung executive.

“We have seen drive happening on indoor small cells. But that doesn’t mean that outdoor isn’t happening. Outdoor is happening at a good speed basis the site availability and so on… We will continue to expand on this piece of the network [indoor] because there are places where it’s more value to go that way,” Srini Sundararajan, Senior Vice President and Head of Networks Business at Samsung India, told ET.

“Jio tells us what their network requirements are, and we support…indoor always volume looks larger because devices are smaller and are easy to deploy and are self-configured,” he added.

Samsung Networks had earlier this year obtained a new 4G LTE network expansion contract from its sole customer in India, Reliance Jio, to increase the telco’s 4G network penetration from around 75% to 99% by Diwali this year.

The South Korean company is the sole 4G equipment provider to Jio with contracts to supply wireless base station equipment for over 140,000 sites for pan-India coverage last year, ET had earlier reported.

Samsung deploying small cells in large volumes for Jio's indoor coverage: Networks head

Image courtesy of Economic Times Telecom (India)

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Sundararajan said that Jio is expanding its networks for both coverage and capacity needs in the country. “It has to be both. There are still parts of the country we need to increase the coverage. Some of the hilly areas or remote areas. For every project, there is a certain percentage of sites for coverage and a large percentage is for capacity,” he added.

For capacity, Jio has started commercial deployment of massive mimo technology in areas where it is not able to add new sites easily.

In addition to 4G wireless equipment, Samsung is also providing packet core technology to Jio. The executive said that the virtualised packet core will play a crucial role in the 5G scenario.  Samsung is currently preparing to conduct 5G field trials in New Delhi in the first quarter of the next year, and is working closely with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

“We have a lot to offer similar to what we did on 4G, and which is why we said that we will partner with the DoT. We are directly partnering with the DoT to ensure that we listen to the needs of the government,” the executive said.

He added that the government’s involvement in these 5G field trials is very crucial for the successful commercial roll out since there will be 5G use cases that will have “societal value” along with the business value.

“The government is very proactively enabling and promoting to grow the 5G network. They are very aware that it is the ecosystem, and not just a vendor or operator. So they tend to bring different players into it to ensure that we are able to provide a high-value system for the country,” he added.

Samsung will be conducting the trial using the millimeter wave (mmwave) spectrum even as other vendors like Huawei plan to conduct trials in the mid-band.  Sundararajan said that the millimeter wave band will offer a large chunk of spectrum that can result in uses cases like fixed wireless access (FWA) with huge capacity for data services. “We need to have the technology in the mmwave to enable the true vision of the government,” he said.

Samsung is currently doing 3.5Ghz trials in the mid-band in South Korea, and in the US, we are doing mmwave trials. “We are technology agnostic, but use cases will drive the adoption of one of these bands,” he said.

References:

https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/samsung-deploying-small-cells-in-large-volumes-for-jios-indoor-coverage-networks-head/66555444?photo_id=65769267

 

Reliance Jio Blankets India with Inexpensive 4G Service; Where are the Profits?

Highlights and Quotes from India’s 5G Congress 2018

India Selects Cisco, Samsung, Nokia, Ericsson for 5G trials; Bars Huawei and ZTE

 

India’s DoT Creates Dedicated 5G Technology Test Bed after Ericsson 5G Demonstration

 

Reliance Jio may overtake Vodafone Idea & Airtel to become India’s largest telecom firm by 2018 year end

According to Livemint, Reliance Jio may soon emerge as the leading wireless telecom company in India. Reliance Jio’s net revenue may have crossed Bharti Airtel Ltd’s wireless revenue in India last quarter, according to analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities Research. If the Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) unit maintains the momentum, then it may emerge as the largest telecom company as early as the end of 2018.

“We expect Bharti Airtel’s net India wireless revenues (reported gross wireless revenues less estimated gross interconnect revenues) to be around ₹87-88 billion for 2QFY19. Reliance Jio’s reported revenues of ₹92.4 billion are net of interconnect revenues as the company adjusts interconnect revenues in the interconnect costs line,” analysts at Kotak Institutional Equities Research said in a note.

“If Bharti does not report a material beat on our estimated wireless revenues for the quarter, Reliance Jio has perhaps crossed Bharti on net India wireless revenues to become #2 after Vodafone Idea. If the current trends continue, Reliance Jio will likely become #1 on net revenues as early as 3QFY19E,” the note said.

Reliance Jio’s focus remains on expanding its subscriber base but the ban on Aadhaar-based e-KYC can affect this. This, however, is seen as a temporary phenomenon. The trends indicate continued tough times for incumbent telecom companies which have to step-up capital expenditure (capex) while dealing with price erosion.

Reliance Jio continued on its strong growth trajectory with the telecom company adding 3.7 crore subscribers in the September quarter. Graphic: Mint

“We expect competitive intensity to remain elevated over the next 9-12 months as fight for subscriber share continues. Reliance Jio, over the weekend, introduced 100% cashback for all packages and various players have been tweaking with pricing and packs,” Jefferies India Pvt. Ltd said in a 19 October note. Further, the incumbents, given their weakened financial position, are lagging in capex, which is crucial for product offerings and customer retention.

Reliance Jio continues to be on an accelerated capex drive, spending around ₹330 billion in H1FY19 (Q2 spend ₹160 billion) which is ~70% its own FY18 capex and is largely equivalent to the combined capex spend of the remaining two incumbents (Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Idea) put together in FY18,” SBICAP Securities Ltd said in a note. “The scale of investments and the current profitability differential suggest that Reliance Jio is unlikely to relent till it achieves a meaningful market leadership in terms of revenue market share.”

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In the second quarter of this fiscal year, Reliance Jio had a significant capex of around Rs 160 billion, although it was 6 per cent down from the previous quarter. Analysts expect the high capex to continue for another two quarters or so, post which the company would shift its focus to the broadband business.

The telecom operator is on track to achieve the 99 per cent of population coverage target within FY2019. Jio attributed the higher capex in the first half of FY19 to expanding mobility networks, which is in the last phase and will subside in the next one-two quarters.

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India consumers are rapidly upgrading to 4G feature phones, led by the JioPhone, that offer a much richer data and video experience, forcing plain handset makers to review their production plans.

CyberMedia Research (CMR) data shows that market share of 2G phones has plunged 17 percentage points in just six months to 30% in the quarter ended June, while Reliance Retail’s 4G variant, called JioPhone, increased its market share by 9 percentage points in the same period to 27%

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Reliance Jio Blankets India with Inexpensive 4G Service; Where are the Profits?

India has the second largest number of Internet users in the world- second only to China.  But only in the last two years has India moved to true broadband wireless service.   Mukesh Ambani, head of Reliance Industries, one of India’s largest conglomerates, has shelled out $35 billion of the company’s money to blanket the South Asian nation with its first all-4G network. By offering free calls and data for pennies, the telecom latecomer has upended the industry, setting off a cheap internet tsunami that is opening the market of 1.3 billion people to global tech and retailing titans.

The unknown factor: Can Reliance reap profits itself after unleashing a cutthroat price war? Analysts say the company’s ultimate plan, after connecting the masses, is to use the platform to sell content, financial services and advertising. It could also recoup its massive investment in the years to come by charging for high-speed broadband to consumers’ homes and connections for various businesses, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Sidebar:  Reliance Jio gaining ground on incumbents via price war

Business Standard says that according to revenue figures of the industry for the April-June quarter, Jio has become the second biggest wireless network operator by revenues, overtaking Vodafone.

In fact, both Vodafone and Idea reported a revenue decline of 7 per cent and 5.2 per cent respectively in the reported quarter. Airtel though managed to increase its adjusted gross revenue (AGR) by 1 per cent, thanks to income from national long distance (NLD) services.

According to a report by JP Morgan, Reliance Jio keeps flourishing in a continually stressed industry, which is why the industry may continue to be in stress.

Meanwhile, zeebiz.com reports “Reliance Jio impact: 15,000 people lost jobs, just 3 companies left in 2 years.”  Apart from declining financial health of incumbents, there have been massive job losses owing to mergers and sector consolidation. Experts estimate the number of job losses to be around 12,000-15,000 in the last two years, with a major shedding from Vodafone and Idea Cellular duo.

Reliance Jio has been gaining subscribers and revenue market share at a rapid pace. But for the incumbents, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India, Idea Cellular, there has been declining average revenue per user (Arpu) and margins with high debt levels. Together, the telecom industry has a cumulative debt of Rs 3.6 lakh crore.

Analysts from Jefferies say that the competitive intensity will remain high as Jio and Bharti focus on subscriber additions. “We expect increased competitive intensity in the postpaid and feature phone segments. The market share is expected to stabilise in the next 12 months. Post that, there will be a gradual Arpu recovery due to customer willingness to pay higher.”

“The next battleground is the 500 million non-LTE subscriber base, which would include 400 million 2G subscribers. Half of the 2G subscribers are low-value subscribers with monthly spend of Rs 50-80. Content and advertising will emerge as key pillars to increase average revenue per user and profitability for the sector in the medium term,” according to Deutsche Bank Research.

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A Jio advertisement featuring Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan.

A Jio advertisement featuring Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan. PHOTO: DHIRAJ SINGH/BLOOMBERG NEWS
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Mr. Ambani’s project has the potential to give India the largest—and most diverse—connected population in the world, with low-cost access to data helping to level the playing field between rich and poor.

It also could revolutionize retail. Mr. Ambani’s success or failure could affect Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp, which have poured resources into developing products for the Indian market, and Walmart Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., which have invested billions here on logistics for online shoppers. To profit, they all need people connected to the internet.

Underserved Population

India has more internet users than the U.S., but a low percentage of the country is online. Slow download speeds are a drag on building subscribers.

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Mr. Ambani wasn’t available to comment, according to a Reliance spokesman. The company “has unleashed huge data potential in the country,” the spokesman said. “Digital life will no longer be the privilege of the affluent few.”

There are 390 million internet users in India, according to Bain & Co., but the penetration rate is still only 28%, compared with 88% in the U.S. The country’s e-commerce market is expected to be worth $33 billion this year, three times what it was in 2015, but less than 3% of India’s overall retail market, according to research firm eMarketer.

Companies are after customers like 59-year-old potato farmer Govind Singh Panwar. His home in the Himalayan foothills is built of mud and stone, and his village has no paved roads or indoor plumbing. Still, broadband internet has arrived.

“I bought our first fridge” online, Mr. Panwar said. “It’s a rare thing in a village.”  He got online last year with Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., Mr. Ambani’s telecom company, which built a tower nearby that beams his phone nearly unlimited 4G data for about $2.10 a month.

Govind Singh Panwar, a farmer in a village in the Himalayan foothills, below, bought his family’s first refrigerator after getting online via Jio’s network. He uses a JioPhone.
Govind Singh Panwar, a farmer in a village in the Himalayan foothills, below, bought his family’s first refrigerator after getting online via Jio’s network. He uses a Jio Phone. PHOTO: NEWLEY PURNELL/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Jio, which means “to live” in Hindi, has signed up 215 million subscribers since it went live in 2016, making it India’s No. 4 mobile provider, after Bharti Airtel Ltd., with 345 million, Vodafone Group PLC and Idea Cellular Ltd.

Mr. Ambani’s foray started in 2010, when he bought a company that had just acquired a pan-India 4G license. That was a risky move at a time when fewer than one in 10 Indians were online. Airtel and Vodafone were still focused on rolling out 3G services, and few Indians owned 4G-capable smartphones.

Promising MarketOnline sales in India have grown rapidly butare still just a sliver of all Indian retail.Source: eMarketerNote: 2018 and later are projections.

Fourth generation, or 4G-LTE networks provide significantly faster speeds than 3G, enabling more content like streaming video and music. They also provide the steadier connections important for online shopping, which can be difficult on patchy networks. 4G networks are common in the U.S., Europe and East Asia.

Mr. Ambani, now 61 and worth more than $48 billion, had just finished building what some have dubbed the world’s most expensive home, a 27-story mansion on a hill with views of the Arabian Sea. It was packed with bling—helipad, home theater, gym, garden, pool—but the internet connection was bad.

When his daughter came home from Yale University during a break, she struggled to submit her course work online. “Dad, the internet in our house sucks,” she complained, according to a story Mr. Ambani later recounted at an event.

At the time, India’s telecom industry executives and analysts agreed there was need for more speed, but they doubted enough people would be willing to pay for it. Indians then were spending only about $2 a month on their cellphones, the vast majority of that on voice calls.

Some rivals began rolling out 4G services in some cities, but Mr. Ambani wanted to build a network that would also cover more than 18,000 cities and towns and 200,000 villages, touching some places that didn’t have electricity yet. That required more than 200,000 cell towers and 150,000 miles of high-tech fiber-optic cable, enough to encircle the Earth six times, according to the company and people familiar with the matter. The construction is essentially complete. Wading through India’s infamous red tape required as much time as the physical infrastructure.

Hungry for Data

India’s average price for cellular data has swooned amid new competition, and usage has skyrocketed.

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To protect its sprawling web of cables, Reliance hired a national network of ex-army staff to look after its lines. It left a few feet of spare cable coiled on top of manhole covers to show thieves looking for copper that the mostly plastic materials weren’t worth pulling out, and local people were paid to keep an eye out for any problems.

“They had audacity, execution, and were financially capable to pull it off,” said Ankit Agarwal, chief executive of telecom products at India’s Sterlite Technologies Ltd. , which supplied and helped install the fiber.

At the launch of service in September 2016, Jio made phone calls and text messages free for subscribers, and made unlimited data free for the first three months, eventually extending it to six months. After that, Jio’s data price would be a quarter the industry average.

“India will change forever,” Mr. Ambani said at the ceremony, in an hour-and-a-half long speech broadcast live on local news channels.

Subscribers in India typically use prepaid plans without contracts, making it easy to switch carriers by swapping in a new SIM card from a competitor.  One adversary that has thrown in the towel: Reliance Communications Ltd., formerly part of the Reliance empire but taken separate by Mr. Ambani’s brother, Anil Ambani, after a family dispute. The company, under pricing pressure from Jio, closed its mobile business in late 2017.

The price war has cut industry wide revenue per user—now averaging $1.53 a month, compared with about $2.50 in 2016. Jio beats the average, at $1.89 a month, but the number has been falling since its launch.

The result has been a data binge. Jio transmitted more data in the first year of its operation than any carrier ever world-wide, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. India last year surpassed the U.S. in the number of apps downloaded from the Google Play store, according to mobile-app analytics firm App Annie. Monthly data traffic in India per user has jumped 570% in the two years since Jio launched, according to Morgan Stanley .

When Jio realized it was reaching the consumers who could afford the data but not the 4G-enabled smartphones, it built a new type of “smart” feature phone that worked on 4G and had some smartphone features. Consumers could own a JioPhone for a $23 security deposit—refundable if they return the phone. It launched in September 2017 and has overtaken Samsung Electronics Co. to capture 47% of the feature phone market, according to research firm Counterpoint.

Companies such as Amazon.com are depending on the new pool of users. Amazon has tweaked its model in India by introducing services like cash on delivery, in which customers can pay with cash when items arrive at their door, since few people have credit cards. The retailer has also deployed swarms of delivery men on motorbikes, so they can negotiate chaotic city traffic.

Google, which has been effectively shut out of China since 2010, has been rolling out new features to cater to users in India, testing products that might also work in other emerging markets, such as Indonesia. It launched a version of its YouTube app, called YouTube Go, designed to work on inexpensive smartphones. It created a mobile payment app for India, called Tez, that works without a credit or debit card. It is also working to make many of its services work with local languages.

At a July investors’ meeting, Mr. Ambani made his ambitions clear. “Even after serving the needs of our 215 plus million customers, the capacity utilization of the Jio network is less than 20%,” he said. “We are determined to connect everyone and everything, everywhere.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-years-ago-india-lacked-fast-cheap-internetone-billionaire-changed-all-that-1536159916?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=18

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