Fast forward – Feb 2016
Its months since Rio Telecom has announced the launch of their 4G LTE service in Mumbai and the buzz is yet to die down. The city has been painted turquoise – the brand color.
Analysts see a considerable take up for Rio’s data offerings among the young and the restless who binges on speed; speed of their internet. They post speedtest selfies declaring speeds of a 100Mbps on their android phones and boasts of downloading movies on their android phones and watching the latest episode of Game of Thrones season 5 while on the train to college while the uncle next to him stared at him and gave the most disgusted look.
The data dongles which give a portable wifi with 4G speeds are a hit with the office going crowd. They use it on their car to work and take it to their desks just in case they want to work around the restrictions of the office proxy servers.
But Rishi Khanna who headed the marketing division at Rio seemed to have a constant wrinkle on his forehead. While the media had lapped up his marketing messages and given a huge fillip in his launch efforts he knew his job was only starting. Its one thing convincing the young and the well to do, quite another reaching the masses.
He was working the North Block to convince the government that the best way to get broadband to the villages is through his wireless networks rather than laying expenses fibre. He knew that if he could just manage to grab a chunk of this ambitious government program he had a foundation to start his work. He is gonna create a market, a veritable internet revolution in the villages of India.
Rishi was knotting his tie. He pulled it tight initially and then though that the higher ups where anyways gunning for his jugular and loosened it. He was traveling to south Mumbai today. The chairman is chairing the first annual review of Rio since the launch of 4G today. It’s not going to be smooth.
Heroes seldom have happy endings.
