KACHARAGADLA

The September launch of Jio, the long-awaited 4G phone service of oil and gas giant Reliance Industries, unleashed a price war in India’s hypercompetitive telecom market with an offer of a four-month free trial followed by free voice calls and messaging and low-priced data services. Stocks of incumbents, including telecom pioneer  Sunil Mittal’s  Bharti Airtel, tumbled. Mittal, who founded his Singtel-backed company 21 years ago, has the most to lose; one in four Indians with a mobile phone is an Airtel customer. To fight off the fearsome competitor, Mittal bought 4G spectrum from struggling rivals for $1.2 billion and is gearing up to buy more at a government auction. Reliance chairman  Mukesh Ambani , who wants to sign up 100 million customers in short order, accused Airtel and others of blocking Jio’s calls to their networks during the trial phase. Airtel said it had always provided access to Jio and increased the interconnection points to its network after Jio’s commercial