There are several Over-The-Top (OTT) companies emerging in India; the strange thing is they are building their apps to support 2G speeds for video downloads. Data provided by IAMAI suggests that 70 percent of India is still running on 2G networks. One would ask if Indians love 2G plans because they have not yet been exposed to the benefits of 4G. Truth be told, there are not many services built for a 4G experience because the network itself is slow. A startup called FastFilmz offers HD-quality unlimited video download for Rs 30 in 4G speeds. But with low-speed 2G networks, their customer must enjoy low-quality video, which can dramatically reduce the experience, because the consumer will have to spend more on data for bad-quality video.
Today, 95 percent of Indians are on prepaid services and only 150 million are using 3G in some form, mostly to transfer downloaded images, music, and video. “Most consumers in the country prefer a 2G data plan because they can continue to message on WhatsApp, or they can download a few songs if they subscribe to a data plan worth Rs 100 that lasts seven days,” says Karam Malhotra, Co-founder of FastFilmz. What consumers do not understand is that 2G networks are slower and expensive to maintain because the technology requires a lot of servers and switches to be added to manage the traffic. The question is why have 4G networks been launched to such low adoption. From this, we can deduce why B2C businesses are not getting funded because the market adoption for data consumption is very low in this country.
This interesting write-up may be read on YourStory
Today, 95 percent of Indians are on prepaid services and only 150 million are using 3G in some form, mostly to transfer downloaded images, music, and video. “Most consumers in the country prefer a 2G data plan because they can continue to message on WhatsApp, or they can download a few songs if they subscribe to a data plan worth Rs 100 that lasts seven days,” says Karam Malhotra, Co-founder of FastFilmz. What consumers do not understand is that 2G networks are slower and expensive to maintain because the technology requires a lot of servers and switches to be added to manage the traffic. The question is why have 4G networks been launched to such low adoption. From this, we can deduce why B2C businesses are not getting funded because the market adoption for data consumption is very low in this country.
This interesting write-up may be read on YourStory
