Reliance Industries unveiled its Jio telecom network on Thursday, touting free calls and rock-bottom data prices that sent shares of established telecom players into a nosedive on fears of an all-out price war. The “free welcome offer” will go live from September 5 to December 31.
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Airtel on Monday began offering customers unlimited 1 gigabyte data recharges at 51 rupees each on paying a flat 1,498 rupee charge for a year.
Reliance Jio hogged the limelight post Mukesh Ambani’s announcements at the 42nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Reliance Industries (RIL).
Reliance Jio announced different packages for different users. Free unlimited voice calls – local as well as STD roaming to any network within India. “No Jio customer will ever have to pay for voice calls again”, he added, devoting around an hour of his 90-minute speech to Jio – which he named 169 times.
Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said his group would invest Rs 5,000 crore in Indian startups over the next five years.
Reliance, which has been giving freebies for the past few months as part of network testing, did not say when it would start billing customers.
Mr Ambani also urged the incumbent operators “not to misuse their market power by creating unfair hurdles”, and accused the entrenched providers of providing Jio with insufficient points of interconnection (PoIs). Access to the internet offers several benefits, especially for those whose exposure to the world around them is relatively limited.
Ahead of the Jio launch, the top three operators – Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea – undertook pre-emptive price cuts offering higher data volumes to retain customers. This is a total worth of Rs. 15,000 and completely worth it.
“To make digital revolution a success in our country, especially for millions of rural Indians, data mining is the future”. Add that to the perks of being young and educated. On the Sixth day, your old number will be activated with the Reliance Jio Sim card. Under this scheme, every user will get a one-month free service from the company, at absolutely no cost.
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The company also announced “super-affordable” handsets under the LYF brand starting Rs 2999.
