Tectonic shift rocks India’s mobile market as Tata has introduced the country’s first per-second pulse followed by launching a pay-per-call pricing model. The market had to follow although ARPU margins eroded. Welcome to the new world order of BOP.
The Indian mobile market continues to experience high subscriber growth. With urban markets already approaching saturation, most of the new subscribers are coming from highly price-sensitive rural and low-income urban segments. In addition, new operators in the market are further increasing competition, putting more downward pressure on prices.
2 Comments
SLCDMA
India is no better when compared to imposing laws to control telephony. This more or less similar to what SL introduced on CDMA phones some time back.
http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/protests_against_ban_on_pre-paid_phones_in_jk.php
People in Kashmir are unhappy and protesting the government’s decision to ban pre-paid mobile telephone connections in the state. The home ministry has decided not to issue fresh pre-paid mobile connections and the existing pre-paid SIM cards will not be renewed in the state after November 1.
Most of the residents in Kashmir have pre-paid connections and a ban will cause difficulties they say. People from other states having prepaid connections will not be provided roaming facilities while visiting the state.
Mobile services were started in the Kashmir valley a few years ago after the then government took the decision despite apprehensions by security agencies that militants would use the technology.
Abu Saeed Khan
@ SLCDMA
You are right – the decree has caused the BOP’s suffering. One should not be surprised if the militants keep communicating. They are never short of cash. No decree can control roaming (both domestic and international) in a live network. It requires total shutdown of all networks to mute the voices in a networked society.
Sri Lanka at WAIC 2026: Aligning with a More Inclusive Vision for Global AI Governance
The World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2026 was held in Shanghai from 17–20 July and brought global attention to the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), as well as the increasingly important question of who gets to shape the rules governing it. This analysis examines the alignment between Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech and Sri Lanka’s Deputy Minister of Digital Economy Eng.
LIRNEasia Senior Research Manager Merl Chandana at NewsFirst Sri Lanka’s Face To Face Programme
LIRNEasia Senior Research Manager and Team Lead for Data, Algorithms, and Policy (DAP), Merl Chandana, was interviewed on NewsFirst Sri Lanka’s Face to Face programme on 9 August 2026. The interview focused on the wonders and dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI), covering a recent cybersecurity incident where an experimental agentic AI model developed by OpenAI was manipulated to execute multiple attacks on Hugging Face.
More Than a Wheelchair: The Case for Mobility That Actually Works
The economic exclusion faced by people with mobility disabilities in Sri Lanka is substantial. Although Sri Lanka has made genuine investments in this area, yet, for many wheelchair users, the journey to work, school, university or a vocational training center remains difficult.
Links
User Login
Themes
Social
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
Contact
9A 1/1, Balcombe Place
Colombo 08
Sri Lanka
+94 (0)11 267 1160
+94 (0)11 267 5212
info [at] lirneasia [dot] net
Copyright © 2026 LIRNEasia
a regional ICT policy and regulation think tank active across the Asia Pacific