Reliance Jio will fight competitors on quality of service: Top executive

Reliance Jio Infocomm will not fight competitors on the price front, but on quality of service, a top company executive said, as the Mukesh Ambani-owned telco tried to deflect talk of a cheaper offering ahead of its impending 4G services launch.

"We are not saying we will lower the price, but we will create a better experience," Rainer Deutschmann, chief product and innovation officer, told ET, adding that if customers want true 4G experience, they would need devices built for it. "People are willing to pay for connectivity, but don't like to pay if they don't get an experience."

In his first media interaction since taking on this role in 2014, the former Deutsche Telekom executive said the data prices in India are "already at such a low level" compared with other markets. His comment comes in the backdrop of fears that Jio's entry would trigger a fierce price battle in the industry.

Source: TOI

Mobile tower radiation have no impact on health: Experts

SHILLONG, March 30: Allaying fears on mobile towers being a contributory factor to health hazards and decline of agricultural and horticultural production in the state, four top experts including the Director of the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGHRIHMS) Shillong Dr AG Ahangar termed the fear as a ‘misconception’.

In an interactive session held at Shillong on Wednesday, the experts said this.

Dr Ramesh Teegela of Grace Cancer foundation said, “There is no scientific data to indicate the existence of cancer risk from mobile towers emissions”, even as he cited the findings carried out by the World Health Organizations’ (WHO) and the United States Food and Drug administration (USFDA).

He said that these unfounded fears has created panic amongst the common man and will affect the upcoming city like Shillong.

Dr A k Ayangar, Director of NEIGHRIMS, stated that although there were some notions that mobile towers cause health hazard, nowhere in the medical literature stated that the mobile towers have the ability to affect the human DNA.

The Director of NEIGHRIMS while laying into rest on the concerns that the patients with pace maker and stands in their heart could be affected by EMF radiation, said, “As an open heart surgeon I can say that it is misleading”.

Both the super medical specialist, however, cautioned that there should be a judicious way of using the handset and to dismiss the notion of Mobile towers being the source of health concerns.

Ex-officio Secretary and former member (Technology) Telecom Commission of India, SS Sirohi said, “India follows one of the strictest norms in permissible levels of EMF emissions, which are ten time more stringent than the international standards prescribed by the WHO.

Asked specifically on the EMF impact on plantations and other species especially when there have been insinuations about the so called impact on the citrus fruits, broom sticks cultivation within the periphery where the mobile towers are based, Sirohi said, “There is no direct evidence. Other factors like climate change, air pollution, use of pesticides and others could have come into play,”

Source: Sentinel Assam