Reliance’s Ambani Lays Out Plan for Low-Cost Mobile Data in India

[zxv]

This should be a concern in the US as well. AT&T Uverse is said to be doing deep packet inspection on all unencrypted traffic unless subscribers pay an additional ~$744/year to opt-out.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/03/atts-p...

This should be a concern because such data on individual subscribers would be available to law enforcement and become a potential mechanism for highly detailed mass surveillance.

[0xmohit]

> unless subscribers pay an additional ~$744/year to opt-out

It probably goes on to suggest that this is the amount service providers expect to benefit per customer by inspecting your data. It's evident that those (including marketing agencies) who compensate the service providers in lieu of this data would benefit even more. Creepy world.

[rkaranjai]

This is reality. The only reason they are giving out the service is against a legalized signatory from you saying they can monitor your usage

[ap46]

Kinda like Valentine from Kingsman.

I'm a bit apprehensive of their executive saying deep packet inspectionn will be the actual gold mine [http://qz.com/771690/reliance-jio-bombshell-the-good-the-bad...]

[0xmohit]

Quoting:

  Privacy: An unnamed Jio executive mentioned “deep packet
  inspection” to Reuters, saying: “It’s called deep packet
  inspection, and what you can do with the analytics of that is
  mind-boggling,” he said, referring to a practice that digs into
  “packets” of data created by computers for efficiency, mining
  them for information. If this is happening and Jio is accessing
  data packets to develop patterns of user data consumption, this
  is a major privacy violation. The company deserves to be taken
  to court for this, as much as the India needs a privacy law.

This essentially implies that they would earn more revenues by analyzing one's browsing behavior, performing analytics and selling the data. Awesome.

Welcome to India!

[eklavya]

I am reasonably sure that all other telecoms are doing this already. Attitude towards privacy of an average Indian leans towards "don't care". We seem to think privacy in numbers or something.

[abverma]

I've been using the network (Jio) for about a month now. The service is great, but the paranoid in me is genuinely worried about Jio ending up having a Verizon-NSA like partnership with the Indian Govt. (they probably already have).

No one will dare question it because we have idiots for politicians and we are nowhere close to having a privacy law for our citizens.

Is VPN, Whonix, Tor (in essence compartmentalization) a good combination to escape their monitoring capabilities?

[witty_username]

HTTPS will allow them to only see the domain. Tor stops the domain from being revealed to them.

[anilgulecha]

This is not what the hype is making it out to be.

The average monthly indian mobile monthly revenue is b/w 150-200rs ($2-$3). The hype is that a user gets a GB of data for Rs 50 (~$1).

But if you look deeper, that's just the rate of charge/GB. The initial plan is still Rs 150 per month (for a paltry 0.3GB of data with free voice). This is better than the current market, but only marginally, not substantially or revolutionary. Heck that fact that the next big plan is Rs 500, and nothing between the basic and the next big plan shows they expect a significant number of users to jump onto the Rs 500 plan. [1]

[1] http://i.imgur.com/IknpMek.jpg

What's going to happen is the 6 other network providers will huddle in their respective HQs and come out with equivalent plans within a fortnight.

But definite kudos to Jio for stirring up the market a little.

[perfectstorm]

what speed do you get ? where are you located at ?

[andy_ppp]

I watched a premier league game via star sports on 3G on a train from Mumbai to Goa once. Seemed better than the 3G in London...

[grecy]

I'm in West Africa now. The 3G here is much faster than in Canada. Cheaper too.

[sudhirj]

Non paywalled article by NDTV http://gadgets.ndtv.com/telecom/news/reliance-jio-plans-reve...

[0xmohit]

Doesn't show anything if you're using an ad-blocker. Effectively paywalled.

[jayadevan]

This is huge. Quoting from a piece linked below.

"Now, here’s my not-so-big bet: Jio will not make its magic number of 100 million customers in one year. The person who offers me the best odds before end of Saturday on a $200 bottle of a single malt is on.

In fact, more from my smoky mirror: Jio will struggle for at least a few years before it starts making a dent in the telecom market." http://goo.gl/hH7Fai

[captn3m0]

Please don't use link-shorteners to hide the link unnecessarily, especially if it is from your own publication. (I love Factordaily, but this is needless).

Link: http://factordaily.com/mukesh-ambani-reliance-jio-launch-imp...

[pynerds]

I hope he will provide some Internet access to rural areas as well. There are several villages where there is no Internet access or poorer connectivity.

[gyey]

Data is now the new oil according to reliance. "One company insider said the Jio logo is actually a mirror image of the word ‘oil,’ reflecting in a way Reliance’s journey from oil drilling to data mining"

[perseusprime11]

Very exciting...I hope this works and they are able to bring half a billion people in remote areas online. Also interesting that they are future proof so their Infrastructure is ready for 5G and 6G.

[meringos]

As people are mostly consuming data on mobile plans, doesn't the company get some of the costs back from peering backbone providers who have to pay to reach the end users?

[goombastic]

Frankly there is something off about the separation and pricing of internet vs "internet via wifi/hotspot" on their service.

[rkaranjai]

That was always there for US consumers. Now the indian players are adopting it

[Ronin354]

WSJ.com asks to sign in to read full content. Not cool man.