few analysts thought he was likely to make back its estimated $31 billion in costs.40 ‘It is madness, complete madness, what this guy is trying to do,’ the head of another telecoms group told me back in 2015, as the momentous scale of Ambani’s plans began gradually to leak out.41 Ambani himself talked about his aims in plainer language, promising a service at a price that ordinary Indians could afford. Indeed, when it did finally launch later that year, he offered it for free, beginning a violent price war with rival operators, who accused him of unfairly cross-subsidising the new business
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