Reliance Jio now claiming as its customers make only 200 minutes of outgoing voice calls to other networks on average every month
Reliance Jio is endeavoring each conceivable way to influence customers that the IUC Top-Up vouchers it launched are since of the officeholder telcos. Last week, Jio trolled Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea on social media by saying that it’s these two telcos who are reliable for the introduction of IUC vouchers. Reliance Jio is the single LTE-only operator in India, but Vodafone Idea and Bharti Airtel are GSM telcos with close to 70% of subscribers are still on 2G and 3G frameworks.
Reliance Jio is now caring for its choice of displaying IUC charges by bringing TRAI data into the picture. Referring to the TRAI data available for the month of June 2019, On average Reliance Jio customers uses 200 minutes of voice calls with other networks each month, which brings the taken a cost to Rs 12. The calculation is made on the 6 paise per smaller than expected, and for 200 minutes, customers will be charged Rs 12 from Reliance Jio which does not show up to be a huge bargain.
The way so far with Reliance Jio
In June 2015, Jio announced that it would start its operations throughout the country by the end of 2015. However, four months later in October, the company postponed the launch to the first quarter of the financial year 2016–2017. The 4G services were launched internally on 27 December 2015. The company commercially launched its 4G services on 5 September 2016. Within the first month, Jio announced that it had acquired 16 million subscribers. Jio crossed 50 million subscriber mark in 83 days since its launch, subsequently crossing 100 million subscribers on 22 February 2017. By October 2017 it had about 130 million subscribers and it’s now the leading telecom service provider with over 340 million users.
Notably, at the time of its launch, Reliance Jio had promised that voice calls from its network across the country will always be free. Before commencement of operations in September 2016, the company had said, “Jio has announced that domestic voice calls to any network across the country would be always free for Jio subscribers the company reiterates that domestic voice calls to any network across the country, both in local as well as while roaming nationally, will be completely free for Jio subscribers forever i.e. even beyond 1 January 2017 – the data used for the voice calls will also neither be charged nor deducted from the data balance of the subscriber.”
In a press statement issued last week, Reliance Jio confirmed that the outgoing calls to rival operators would be charged at six paise per minute. For Jio prepaid customers, the company has introduced four Interconnect Usage Top-Up Vouchers (IUC Vouchers) and they are priced at Rs 10, Rs 20, Rs 50 and Rs 100. These vouchers ship with free IUC minutes to the customers; The Rs 10 IUC voucher comes with 124 minutes of non-Jio minutes, Rs 20 ships with 249 minutes of IUC minutes, Rs 50 comes with 656 minutes of minutes and the Rs 100 voucher provides a user 1,362 minutes of non-Jio calling. The data benefit of these plans includes 1GB, 2GB, 5GB, and 10GB, respectively.
Recently, Reliance Jio shares a TRAI report which says Jio customers are making only 200 minutes of on an average outgoing voice calls to Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea per month. If Jio charging 6 paise per minute as IUC charges, 200 minutes is equal to Rs 12. Basically, Reliance Jio customers will have to pay a minimal extra amount every month. The TRAI report is an average usage minute, where a subscriber can also make outgoing off-net (other networks) calls over 2000 – 3000 minutes and other subscribers can also make this less than 100 minutes.
Reliance Jio Revised their Full Talktime Offer
Earlier to launch of IUC voucher, Reliance Jio was offering full talk time on every top-up recharge and it was available through MyJio App & Jio Website, like if a customer is recharging with Rs 10, the user was getting a full talk time in the prepaid account though the balance amount was not usable due to unlimited calling. Now right after the introduction of IUC Top-Up vouchers, the same top-up amount is providing Rs 7.47 of main account balance, i.e. post deduction of telecom taxes. In our opinion, if subscribers will be getting the earlier benefits (full talk time), it may beneficial to the customer.
