T N Ninan: Jio Mukesh! And hope his competitors will 'Jio' too

Jio has turned profitable within 18 months of its 'launch' but that's no reason to ignore the competitors' plight who have been incurring losses

About 15 years ago, my monthly mobile phone bill used to be Rs 5-6,000 and more. It dropped to Rs 2,000 some years back, and fell further last year to about Rs 1,000. Now it is in the hundreds. As technology has moved up from one ‘G’ (for Generation) to the next, and as new entrants have undercut established players, the biggest beneficiaries have been customers—whose ranks have grown manifold. At a tariff that is little more than the price of a modestly-priced restaurant meal, they now get unlimited calls, free long-distance ‘roaming’, massive numbers of text messages, and gigabytes