Last year, Reliance Jio stepped into the postpaid segment with JioPostpaid plan priced at Rs 199 but that plan received poor response
Reliance Jio will be introducing a new service for postpaid users in the coming days called JioPostpaid Plus. As the same itself suggests, JioPostpaid Plus will be a premium version of the JioPostpaid service that was introduced by Reliance Jio last year.
However, JioPostpaid failed to impress the audience because it has only one plan under its portfolio priced at Rs 199 and the benefits were lukewarm compared to the postpaid plans from other telcos. But the JioPostpaid Plus service promises to fulfill all those areas by providing features like priority SIM setup service, data sharing functionality, doorstep MNP service and mobile phone bundled offers. JioPostpaid Plus was said to officially launch on September 5, but that did not happen. However, the service will be launched very soon, according to the information we have.
JioPostpaid Plus: What is It and What it Offers?
Last year, Reliance Jio stepped into the postpaid segment with the JioPostpaid plan priced at Rs 199. As the name of JioPostpaid Plus itself suggests, it will be an upgraded version of the original JioPostpaid service. Right now, we don’t have the pricing of JioPostpaid Plus plans or just a single plan, but we do know what the company is planning to offer under this upcoming service.
At the Reliance Industries AGM, Mukesh Ambani stated that the JioPostpaid Plus service could be availed right from the subscriber’s home as the company is planning to offer India’s first priority SIM set up service at home. Even Jio promises Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service at the customer’s doorstep, so there will not be any hassle of running to Jio Digital Stores with the Unique Porting Code (UPC) for MNP.
Prepaid plans these days ship with daily data benefit, but that isn’t the case with postpaid plans from incumbent telcos Airtel and Vodafone Idea. Reliance Jio is also touting that the JioPostpaid Plus service will offer seamless voice & data connectivity everywhere, probably the company is referring to the unlimited data and voice calling features which may ship with Postpaid Plus plans.
Finally, Reliance Jio will be implementing data sharing feature with JioPostpaid Plus service. Bharti Airtel is providing four postpaid plans and three of them ship with child add-on connections, where users can share their primary account data benefit with the child connections. JioPostpaid Plus is touted to offer unprecedented family plans with data sharing, which is currently being offered by Airtel. It will be interesting to see whether Jio implements data carry forward functionality or not.
JioPostpaid Plus will provide affordable international roaming plans to the customers along with phone upgrades at preferential rates. Reliance Jio may team up with smartphone brands to bring mobile phones with bundled JioPostpaid Plus plan. In the United States and other countries, customers can purchase a mobile phone with a locked SIM card, and the same was introduced by Reliance Jio and Airtel a couple of years ago in India as well.
However, the concept did not take off as there were no proper phone upgrade options. In the US, customers on a specific carrier will be given an option to upgrade their current phone with the latest model once it comes out. That said, the JioPostpaid Plus service promises the introduction of phone upgrades at user-preferred costs, which is an exciting aspect to see.
JioPostpaid Plus vs Airtel Postpaid: What Can We Expect?
When it comes to postpaid plans, Bharti Airtel is the leading telco as it’s providing a wide range of plans with attractive benefits to the customers. Airtel is already providing two significant features that JioPostpaid Plus will likely offer- family data sharing plans and seamless data & voice connectivity. However, JioPostpaid Plus promises smartphone upgrades as user-preferred rates and priority SIM set up service at user doorstep.
On the flip side, no telco can beat Bharti Airtel in terms of OTT service subscriptions. All the Airtel postpaid plans ship with three months of free Netflix service, one-year of Amazon Prime membership worth Rs 999 for free, premium ZEE5 membership, Shaw Academy online courses, Airtel TV Premium and so on. Reliance Jio did not promise any such benefits with the JioPostpaid Plus service, but it will be interesting to see the prices of the plans from Jio.
Also, it’s said that the JioPostpaid Plus service will also provide Home Solutions (not sure whether the company is referring to IoT products it’s planning to offer next year) to the customers and the service will be limited to just JioFiber users. That being said, the road for Reliance Jio is tough ahead in the postpaid segment, but we all know how aggressive will Jio get into when it comes to pricing its plans.
JioPostpaid Plus Plans Launching Soon
At the Annual General Meeting of Reliance Industries which took place last month, Mukesh Ambani said that JioPostpaid Plus plans will be announced on September 5 alongside JioFiber plans. However, that did not happen. Reliance Jio did announce the JioFiber broadband plans on September 5, but the company did not announce the plans for JioPostpaid Plus. That said, according to the information we have right now, JioPostpaid Plus plans will be announced very soon by the company, so stay tuned for the same.
