Its over a week since the telecom giant JIO has announced its ambitious 4G feature phone the 'JIO phone'. The phone looks pretty good for the masses when looked at the bundle of offerings one gets with it. The customers get free voice calls to any network, a TV cable developed in house which will allow users to connect with normal television sets to watch the content on large screen and not to mention preloaded JIO apps to watch content, get news and do more on their affordable feature handset. And no this is not a dream shown by a con company like Ringing Bells.
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| JIO Phone |
One might think what could be wrong with someone being generous to help push the Digital India dream to next set of users which are forgotten even by the government, however competitors pay close attention to your moves in a game play. Its like the government and opposition where both groups work on their own agenda while also playing the role of watchdog to bring wrong doings of each other. In similar circumstances Idea is the first one to find and raise the anomalies behind the scheme.
The issue raised by Idea is very genuine and serious. The JIO phone booking starts from 24th August and offers the customers its own apps and may be some other apps with which company might tie up, but also deprive the users to have basic apps which are prevalent in market and force their own version of apps instead. The story is very similar to that of Facebook's internet.org. Facebook's mission to provide selective internet for free to users which had caused a massive outrage against the company and led TRAI to set out norms for the same.
Idea on other hand is planning on something slightly expensive offering but it will allow users the choice of operator, apps, browser etc. Its not only Idea that has raised the flag over JIO phone , Deutsche Bank and Kotak bank also expressed their concerns saying that the offering might well be breaching net neutrality principles.
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