I’m sorry, but the facts are that india has (had) a remarkable telecom sector at inception.
The reason why I say this is because it’s VERY easy for the market structure to get flubbed and become only 2 or 3 firms which “compete”. (See america- invented the Internet, didn’t get the market right.)
India has some of the lowest, if not the lowest ARPUs in the world. The Indian telecom sector invented the 0 cost phone call (you give a missed call to a phone number, people call you back with offers)
Market structure is so important - you see it how the nascent Value added services market was destroyed by Indian telcos.
Back in the day one new area of innovation was VAS- but telcos were able to dictate the profit spread to VAS firms once they realized VAS was profitable. This killed the industry.
Telecoms tend towards rent seeking behavior (American telecoms say “this is the best service we can provide”, until google fibre turns up and magically those fibre installations get executed)
Data prices being high ignores the cost of calls and of infra issues the telcos were facing.
The spectrum auctions and the subsequent Supreme Court verdict destroyed our market - and there just isn’t the kind of market and economic acumen+Political power mix which will fix the market.