India unreal: Jio goes for 50M FTTH in 1100 cities, already 215M 4G and 96+% covered
Audited financials* report a profit with prices of $2-10/month. Rio sells with feature phones from $30 and smartphones from $60. Ambani offers LTE to 96% of India, confirmed independently by OpenSignal. heading to 99%. No government subsidy, ET predicts prices will start at $8.
If India can do this with a $7K per capita income, so can Poland $29K per capita, Malaysia $28K, Argentina $20K, Mexico $19K, Dominican Republic $17K, Egypt $13K, Indonesia $12K, and many, perhaps most, of the 110 countries with higher incomes than India. Myanmar, one of the world's poorest, is over 90% covered and will soon be 95% LTE. Less than that is a government failure.
The primary secret is the incredibly low costs of today's wireless networks. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam says his current cost per bit is 90% less than just a couple of years ago.