He led the Technology Community at Reliance Jio, where he had successfully launched Pan India 4G LTE services and built a next-generation VoLTE broadband data network. The new network infrastructure could easily be updated to 5G and is the fastest in the market. Jio had created worldwide history by offering the next generation’s digital services over a very large-scale end-to-end all-IP network. Launched in September of 2016, Jio has caused waves worldwide by being the largest provider of mobile broadband data and catapulting India to greater heights (1).
Jagbir Singh has been named chief technology officer by Vodafone Concept, replacing Vishant Vora, who left the company after a decade-long stint. In another top-level promotion, Manish Sansi (2) was appointed as the new chief legal officer by the Telco. Sansi assumes the position of Chief Legal Officer following the resignation of Kumar Das (3). Singh’s appointment comes when Vodafone Concept is seeking to boost the efficiency of its network to reduce the churn of subscribers. Singh will focus on network upgrades and expansion in this position, especially in order with 16 circles where the Telco wants to obtain new subscribers. Singh recently worked at Smartfren Telecom (4), Indonesia, as Group Chief Technology Information Officer, responsible for networks, IT and digital platforms, and enterprise business.
He served as Reliance Jio’s group (5) chief technology officer and supported it in launching 4G services in the country. Singh had worked with Samsung before that and had previously worked for around a decade with Airtel. Following our announcement of the departure of Vishant (6).
“I am pleased to inform you that Jagbir Singh will join us as Chief Technology Officer; following our announcement of Vishant Vora’s leaving, I am glad to inform you that Jagbir Singh will be joining us as CTO,”
said CEO and MD Ravinder Takka (7).
“Jagbir is a well-experienced telecommunications technology professional with over 30 years’ expertise across India and South East Asia, where he’s been Group CTO with various telecoms companies. Singh led transformations in inter-generational technology & architecture”,
Takkar added and has been instrumental in extensive rollouts and operations of the 4G network. One thousand one hundred forty-five network locations, a consecutive quarter of site reductions, were shut down by Vodafone Concept during the second quarter. However, it added 11,000 broadband base stations.
Analysts said the Telco continues to face twin challenges in improving its heterogeneous 4G network to capture the 4G upgrade wave and reduce capacity provision costs while resolving the most significant regulatory burden among peers from the AGR event. This suggests that share losses are likely to continue in the medium term until the right corporate sizes in the full circles enter a regional retreat. Although optimistic, high leverage and onerous regulatory burden improve the market structure, Vi’s equity remains unforeseeable. J.P Morgan acknowledged in a statement, “We see value migrating to debt holders” (8).
From working under Mukesh Ambani as CTO
As Chief Technology Officer of the Reliance JIO company, he was responsible for overseeing technology development, operations, and automation, including innovation and network strategy and architecture (9) to meet coverage, availability, and efficiency requirements and support data access and services such as VoLTE-HD Voice and eMBMS (10), he supported end-to-end network design and the network’s implementation. By providing technological development faster than before and incorporating new technologies such as Software-Defined Networking, Network Function Virtualization, Artificial intelligence, SON, CEM, Deep Learning, Highly integrated Mobile data Packet Core and Small Cells, Jio’s network is now adding the most significant subscriber base. Today, Jio Network supports more than five crore GB of data traffic per day and 350 crore voice & video minutes per day and has become the world’s largest data-transported network.
In a vital sign that India can and will embrace digitization and digital life faster than anybody else globally, Jio users today consume nearly that much data as the USA and 50 percent more data than China. In under seven months of Jio’s planned expansion, India had moved up to 1st place worldwide from 150th place in mobile internet data use. Business analysts believe that Jagbir played a crucial role in developing and launching Jio, the latest Greenfield communication services company (11) which has taken the market by storm by transforming the country, empowering people, and rapidly accelerating the dream of creating a Digital India that will quickly monitor the nation to become a developed nation.
Just before to Reliance Jio, Jagbir was the CTO & Director of Telecommunications and a representative of the Airtel Management Board and head of the Network Services Division in India and South Asia, where he was responsible for monitoring 2G, 3G, 4G, fixed broadband voice and DSL, domestic and international long-distance and DTH services, one of the world’s leading networks. Jagbir served on The board & CTO-Technology and Networks for Reliance Communications before his Airtel tenure.
Vodafone’s financial standing over time
Recently, Vodafone Idea announced a substantial reduction in losses to approximately Rs 7,218 crore for the September quarter from the year-ago interval, and signs of restoration were reported in Q2 FY21 with a steady improvement financial actions. During the second quarter of the FY 2020, VIL’s losses were Rs 50,920 crore after it provided statutory dues mandated by the Supreme Court. The financial quarter’s gross earnings had ended on September 30, came in here at approximately 10,791 crores, down marginally from the same interval earlier 12 months (12). Nonetheless, sales were sequentially 1.2 percent higher in contrast.
In a regulatory filing, Vodafone Idea announced a rise in a net loss to 11,640 crores for the March quarter. Its losses in the very same period a year ago stood at 4,880 crores and 6,440 crores in the previous quarter of October-December. For the period up to 2016-17, the Department of Telecom estimates the company’s Adjusted Gross Revenue dues at 58,254 crores. Still, the company placed the dues at 46,000 crores “after an adjustment of certain computational errors and payments made earlier not considered in the DoT demand.” (13).
The network merger was in the final stages of completion but had been impacted due to the nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They had completed the network merger in 92 percent of total districts,” the company added. The remaining consolidation is likely to take longer than initially expected because of the continuation of the national lockout, it said. Its user base diminished in the March quarter to 291 million from 304 million in the December quarter. For the fourth quarter, the average revenue per user improved to 121 versus 109 in the third quarter of the financial year 2020, led by the December 2019 prepaid tariff hike. Upon completing the Indus-Infratel merger, Vodafone Idea retained its plans to monetize its 11 percent interest in Indus Towers.
The Vodafone-Idea merger
The convergence brings together Vodafone India and Vodafone India Idea Cellular, two of India’s leading operators, who played a vital role in the mobile growth of The most famous communication and communication model. Throughout the telecoms movement, the telecommunication revolution drove Uh, nation. The architecture of the merged business is flexible, technologically savvy, and fit for the future. Yeah, it’s a World-class company professionally run, Combining the best of Vodafone India from both Idea Cellular and. The corporation is committed to Creating an indeed ‘Digital India‘ by allowing To bind millions of people, enter the digital Revolution and a better future to create. It’s going to Accelerate the development of India into a digital Economy with a quality product portfolio and services on offer under both its iconic Brands and loved ones – Vodafone and Idea. Well… that’s what their merger announcement says. (14).
The rebranding – Vodafone+Idea = “Vi”
This year was significant in the telecom industry as the two most prominent telecom industry, Vodafone and Idea, merged (15). This merger not only stiffed the Telco’s but also stiffed the market as well. The share price rose by 4 percent after the rebranding was revealed, compared to a 0.06 percent decline in the Nifty 50. The partnership was triggered by Reliance Jio, a subsidiary of the oil refining company Reliance Industries, into the market, which collapsed industry earnings on mobile tariffs with a destructive price war.
This came as a significant blow to Vodafone’s investment in India, which, when it entered the market in 2007 by acquiring Hutchison’s telecoms division in the region, was presented as a new growth market. When Vodafone wrote down its Indian unit’s valuation by 6.3bn in November 2016, the problem’s size became apparent. Vodafone Idea will maintain the listing of Idea Cellular on the Indian stock exchanges and be chaired by Kumar Mangalam Birla, the controlling shareholder of the Aditya Birla group Idea Cellular.
The new logo was unveiled to the world right after the company’s Annual General Meeting was held. The company intends to raise about Rs 15,000 crore in debt and equity and another Rs 10,000 crore by selling its data center and fiber business. Still, it promises that the total fundraising will not exceed Rs 25,000 crore. With its 5G services, Vi will give both Jio and Airtel a tough rivalry. But in India, 5G also has a long way to go. Vi needs to concentrate on improving its cash flow right now. For any investor in the firm, the Telco can not afford to borrow more, and the Q2 results will be very significant. The results of Q2 will explain how the firm has restructured its finances. To survive, VI needs to get back the clients it has been losing and requires a higher ARPU. Overall, the Telco has become too massive to collapse, and if it does, the country’s economy will be hit tremendously (16).
Jagbir Singh’s influence over the growth of VI
Now, as you’ve read through the growth and losses of Vi, Jagbir’s power and need over the Telco force of the company only widens as ever. With the development of the company and the struggle to make way for the past consumer attacks, Jagbir for Vi must create a plan that lays for the future of Vi, for the idea that strikes the very reason the merger took place. With rising competition from airtel and especially Jio, who has been taking the Telecom sector by the leg, Vi only can initiate a booming market at the rate of these more significant operations that now plunge the others into waters.
Jagbir’s entry might not have been at a very fruitful time for him. Even though he has worked for airtel and jio, which has been crucial to his telco knowledge and marketing epicenter, telecom is very significant to the market. With this much knowledge and expertise, it’s easy to say that now Vodafone’s idea has been put into man’s hands who can fly the company to a greater height and make much more use of Vi’s system failing to recoup over the years. With bad reviews over the network and broadband systems, the time for better development is what Jagbir must take in for better growth.
With the launch of Vi’s Giganet into rollout from September, the growth has slowly increased with it’s attractive and unique branding of the product. A network that establishes an equal system for all irrespective of the location is what they call the product. GIGAnet will deliver “India’s most massive universal cloud deployment, making it the strongest, future-ready, new-age dynamic network of these times, to accommodate the vast amount of data traffic that the post-Covid world has seen. The integrated system’s upgrade will increase the network’s capacity and upgrade the network to higher powers and faster speeds. (17)
