India’s Reliance Jio Infocomm has revealed plans to finally officially launch mobile services on Monday, offering free voice calls and heavily discounted mobile data services compared to current market prices.
Advertisement
Announcing the tariff plans he said that Jio tariffs will be 1/10 of the prevailing prices being charged now. Ambani talked about how telcos are obligated to extend interconnect capacity to Jio for its voice services and how a fair competition will help the industry grow. Domestic roaming charges will not apply in Jio tariffs.
There is a news of relief for the young aspiring entrepreneurs across the nation as Reliance Jio have ventured their capital of around Rs.5000 Crore to help setup their Start ups. Reliance Jio will be launched commercially on December 31. Bharti Airtel was up slightly, but Idea and RCom were down 2.1% and 1.5% respectively.
“We expect the incumbent operators to fulfil their regulatory obligations in letter and spirit”.
Devoting an hour of his speech at the RIL’s 42th Annual General Meeting, the billionaire industrialist said Jio is targeting 100 million users in a shortest possible time.
“There are 22,000 telecom tariffs across country”. This is unprecedented and signals a shift in the Indian telecom sector that data is the new voice. Voice calling for Jio users will be free for life, so will be national roaming.
At present, Airtel offers 1GB of 3G or 4G mobile internet for Rs 259 valid for 28 days.
The lowest Rs 19 plan is for occasional data users.
Investors deserted the counters of telecom operators, with Idea Cellular plunging 11 percent to Rs 83.20 – its 52-week low – during the day on BSE. All the plans, excluding the Rs 149 plan, will bundle in free unlimited SMSes.
“In our data plans, the effective rates will be Rs 50 per GB.If you use more data, it will go down to Rs 25 per GB”, he said.
Incidentally, Reliance Jio is also part of the cellular association. According to Ambani’s presentation, data rates per GB are around USD 30 in Japan, USD 18 in Korea, USD 15 in China, USD 7.5 in Spain and USD 6 in South Africa.
Apple iPhone users in India can install or update My Jio app and click on “Get Jio Sim” banner.
Advertisement
“For a price-sensitive market like India, launch of affordable data services and free voice calls is indeed a welcome step”.
