After his announcements, shares of Bharti Airtel and Idea tanked and cost them almost Rs 13,800 crore.
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This was also keenly awaited since Reliance Industries has invested as much as US$21 billion in Jio – its largest ever capital expenditure on a single project. Some perks of Reliance Jio main tarrif is as follows: No roaming charges to be applied Free domestic calls Students will be able to get 25 percent more data on Jio’s main tariffs Platinum customers to get white glove services.
People said Ambani opened the digital doors to people living in the remote areas of the country.
Market leader Bharti Airtel cut its prices for mobile data services earlier this week ahead of Reliance’s AGM in a bid to stop users switching to Jio in coming months.
Last year, Ambani had said that the services would be priced between Rs 300 and Rs 500. At present, about 70 per cent of the revenues of incumbents in telecom come from voice calls. The company announced that it will charge only 5 paise per MB or Rs 50 per GB. Roaming charges for Jio will be “zero” within India.
“Jio’s data, voice, video and full bouquet of Jio applications and content will be available for everyone, absolutely free, till December 31, 2016”, he said promising to offer data speeds of up to 1 gigabyte per second.
Airtel in a statement said: “We welcome Reliance Jio’s entry to the digital world and wish them the very best”. Jio network is 5G and 6G ready, said Ambani. So Jio’s free voice move will force others to lower voice charges, leading to big drop in their margins. “There is only one language spoken on the Jio network”.
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The launch has been hotly anticipated in India whose notoriously patchy mobile network is known for bad reception and irregular pricing structures.
