1 GB = ₹ 100 😲

    So, you might be thinking this is a clickbait, but no it isn’t, it’s not a clickbait, this tragic situation where we need to pay nearly 100 rupees to get one gigabyte of the internet might happen in the upcoming months. Since almost 80% of Indians prefer and use mobile data instead of Wi-Fi, this news comes as a shock to many of us.

THE HISTORY

    Now, the cost for 1GB of data is just around Rs.10. But we all know this wasn’t the case all along, during the pre-Jio era, we used to pay a lot compared to what we pay today for internet and the consumption was also not like today. We would pay, like 200 rupees and get around 2GB of data and surprisingly, we’d keep that 2 gigabytes of data for nearly a month, which to think now, seems impossible. After Reliance entered the battleground and with the introduction of Jio 4G and all, this price reduced drastically, and that too, to a point where today India is one of those countries, that has the cheapest mobile data in the world, compared to many other countries. Helmed by billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Jio, India has managed to deliver at a very low price. As I said earlier, the cost for 1GB data in India is just Rs.10 (0.13 USD), whereas in the US the cost for the same amount of data is 12.37 dollars and in the UK it is 6.66 USD. The global average for the same is around 8.5 USD, so you can how cheap it is in India. And because of this, a lot of people are benefited, like many influencers and youtubers and so on.

POSSIBLE PRICE HIKE

After all, it seems like we won’t be able to enjoy this low price in the upcoming months. So, recently, Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal, he gave a statement, according to that statement he feels this situation where we can get 1GB of data for Rs.10 is a tragedy and he thinks that if we go on like this the telecom companies like Airtel, Jio and such won’t be able to sustain. So, he hinted at a significant hike in tariffs soon. He suggested that instead of getting like 16GB for Rs.160, the users should get only 1.6GB. In other words, Airtel is planning to ask its users to pay around Rs.100 for one GB of the internet. Imagine, you use around 2GB per day, so that is Rs.200 per day and you might need to pay a whooping Rs.6000 monthly, which is horrific. 

According to Sunil Mittal,

        “16 GB data consumption a month for Rs 160 is a tragedy.”

“You either consume 1.6 GB of capacity per month either at this price point or you may prepare to pay a lot more. We are not wanting USD 50-60 like the US or Europe but certainly USD 2 for 16 GB a month is not sustainable.”

He noted that consumers should get 1.6GB data at this price or should be ready to pay a lot more. These were his exact words, so he asks his customers to either pay more adapting to the new tariffs or to reduce the consumption by 10%. The reason for this is that Airtel wants to increase its ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), it is basically the revenue they get because of a single user per month, on an average. So, Sunil Mittal stated that for a telecom company to remain sustainable, the ARPU must be above 300, the current ARPU of Airtel is around 150, so they wanna increase this ARPU to at least 200 in next 6 months, and eventually reach their goal of 300.

    So, the next 6 months gonna be interesting, to see what Airtel does and also what the other companies like Jio, are planned to do. But, for now, let us all hope that we don’t again reach a point where we need to pay hundreds of rupees to get one Gb of data.

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