For

A) Jio Practiced providing services of data, voice, video and the full banquet of Jio
Applications at free of cost.
B) The dilemma of the “Dominant Position”: Since the Indian market is all about numbers, no
new entrant can be said to be in a “dominant position” and, therefore, may never be guilty
of predatory pricing, even though it may have deep pockets to withstand lower tariffs as
compared to other operators and successfully eliminate any future competition from other
new entrants. Huge Investment approximately of Rs 1.6 Lakh Crores which was done by
Reliance Jio (which was originally obtained from Reliance Industries Limited.
C) Extension of freebies: RJio’s free services of the trial period were supposed to be till
December 30, 2016. However, they had constantly extended deadlines until the introduction
of Jio Prime.
D) Acquisition of 4G spectrum: Jio acquired the BWA/4G spectrum in 2010 and benefitted as
the government changed its rules retrospectively. Thus, enabling RJio to provide both voice
calls and data services on the same spectrum.
E) RJio is data centric and works only on 4G mobile handset. Therefore, consumers may end
up paying more for RJio services under the guise of free voice calling than other providers.
Against

A) Providing free services cannot by itself raise competition concerns unless the same is
offered by a dominant enterprise.
B) Mere obtaining of funds from the holding company for the purpose of expansion by a new
entrant in the market cannot be termed as anti-competitive: Aggregate investment made by
Airtel in telecom industry is much more than amount Rs 1.6 Lakh Crores which is being
invested by Jio.
C) Jio only had 6.4% market share in Feb 2017: Thus, having regard to subscriber base, size,
resources and economic power, it cannot be said that Jio is having a dominant position in the
market and hence its offers are only in nature of promotion rather being predatory.
D) If no free samples or free services are allowed, it will be difficult for anyone to make an
entry in the market. Especially with the telecom industry with high entry barriers and
switching costs at that time.
E) What Jio has done is not only not anticompetitive but in furtherance of competition. This is
what new entrants are supposed to do— shake things up in a monopolistic/oligopolistic
market in order to ensure consumer welfare.
F) After Jio, it became clear that incumbent telecom players were overcharging.
G) Jio bet on a frequency which was lying unused in abundance. It combined voice and data -
no one had thought of using voice in that spectrum band

India has always been one of the lowest ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) nations in the world. This
is the metric that matters. Hence, telecom revenue in India is very low. You make it up for in scale.

Telecom industry is economically different from retail. The cost to rent spectrum, buy towers, build
infra is high. This means barrier to entry are very high, so no one is going to be able to walk into the
market and give the old players a run for their money.

The Indian government had done a good job in by the 2012, and had created a vibrant market with
many competitors, nearly 12-16 per circle. That is Insanely good. This is the kind of competition that
forces innovation, like the 0-cost phone call or other tools to get more users to sign up.

India had one of the biggest telco markets in the world, beating even China.

However, in 2012 the accusations of impropriety, and resulting SC verdict turned all of that around
on a dime. All 122 licenses were cancelled.

Fresh spectrum auctions were held thereafter in 2012-13. The remaining licensees had to bid for
spectrum since the 2008 allotments were struck down. Further financial stress resulted. The
competitive climate and the affordability of new subscribers left little room to raise prices.

At this point, many firms decided to just Fuck off from a brutal market.

Jio entered the market with its pricing strategies.

The next SC verdict. Old telco operators had signed a contract to pay for spectrum via revenue.
Logically everyone assumed that this meant telecom revenue. However, the contract was not
worded correctly, it just said "revenue". This issue went up to the SC for clarification - and the SC
correctly said this means all Revenue.
This means that if Vodafone makes money off of a sale of a store, or off of any real estate, THIS TOO
is included in the calculation! This has resulted in ridiculous scenarios where firms that bought a
minor amount of spectrum - say ONGC - to monitor their gas lines, has to pay a % of their top line
revenue to the govt!

These are MASSIVE dues, and the firms are essentially going to go bankrupt. Case in point, VI

The Indian telecom landscape is currently in Terminal decline. A situation with only 3 players
especially where 2 are about to die, is the worst scenario in telecom.