Spectra gears up to disrupt the "broken Indian broadband market" with its rebranding

Spectranet has been one of India’s fastest fiber internet service provider covering Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Bangalore, for almost a decade. The Gurgaon based broadband provider was recently ranked by Netflix as the fastest ISP in India. And now, the company has undergone a massive rebranding as they gear up to more on the business to customer services, in addition to enterprise and businesses.

With a new brand, Spectra aspires to deliver not just speed but will also follow on three principles - Speed, Service, and Simplicity. The company will provide more services to its customers apart from being a high-speed internet with unlimited data usage, by bringing a new level of broadband experience to consumers. 

Speaking to TechRadar India in an exclusive interaction, MD & CEO Udit Mehrotra explained Spectra’s vision going forward. “When we look at the market for broadband services, it is very broken, people don't get a consistent experience”, said Mr. Mehrotra, as he explains how many of the current providers fail to deliver on what they promise.

“In the industry, we don't even bother to put an asterisk on the brochures anymore, we just go ahead and lie to the customer", added Mr. Mehrotra.  "When we say unlimited, that means throughout the month, irrespective of how much  you use, you continue to get the same service experience."

Spectra aims to disrupt the broadband service industry by providing 100 Mbps speed across all its packages at affordable price points."We don't look at where everybody in India is, we look at where everybody else in Asian is, how can we do better than other Asian countries for that matter”, explained the CEO.

"Our approach to the market and customer has always been how to become an enabler rather than a limiter", pointed Mehrotra.“ People don't realize that the consumption of the data has been going up  so much, the same 5 minute YouTube video you once watched in 480p now consumes 100 times more data as the quality of the video has gone up to 4k

The skeptic may question about the space broadband providers have in Indian internet space after the Jio revolution, which saw mobile data prices, especially 4G, being slashed at alarming rates. However, according to Mehrotra, the Jio revolution, in fact, was a positive factor. "What Jio has done is they have enabled millions and millions of Indians who never had access to good quality broadband at a very affordable price. Jio has finally brought affordability more in line with their aspiration, and now more and more people are talking about data.”

Shahnawaz Karim, GM of Marketing at Spectra was quick to point out that "in longer term people will want more reliability and predictability with the broadband network, which mobile broadbands does not' provide, making broadband services an essential.”  

In fact, Spectra is betting on reports that eventually, people even in grassroots levels, experiencing the internet for the first time are will be willing to pay for experience and quality of service, once internet became a necessary part of their daily lives.

Speaking on the rebranding, Udit Mehrotra says "our visions and actions have evolved over a decade, and a little over a year ago, we realized that there was a huge mismatch between how we looked and what we did. It was time to us to bring our look more in line with what we did, as a result today we have very crisp, clear, and sharp brand identity.  " 

The rebranding efforts began from bottom up, with the old name Spectranet slashed to just Spectra.The company roped in Ochre, a brand and experience consultancy based in London and Dubai. Ochre had been working closely with the leadership team and customers to create the overall brand expression and experience strategy. 

By renaming Spectranet to Spectra, the company aspires to become more than just a broadband service provider. It recently forged a partnership with content service provider Hungama.com and is also planning to add more content solutions for its customers to enjoy a wider range of services to its customers.

Jibu Elias

Jibu Elias is the lead AI researcher at NASSCOM, lending his wide knowledge and keen insight into artificial intelligence in currently working towards building a unified AI eco-system backed by the Govt. of India. Coming from years of experience in covering emerging technologies, Jibu has a knack for putting seemingly unrelated things in the context of AI with a focus on ethical and legal implications of AI.