Reliance Jio announces free voice calls, cheaper data tariffs

Mumbai: Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Thursday announced free voice calling, zero roaming charges and cheaper data tariffs for Jio customers.

Ambani also announced a 'free welcome offer' for Jio customers from September 5 till December 31. R Jio will offer users data services free for four months, after which it will offer 10 tariff plans starting at Rs 19 a day for occasional users, Rs 149 a month for low data users and Rs 4,999 a month for heavy data users.

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.

The company also announced "super-affordable" handsets under the LYF brand starting Rs 2999.

Ambani said: "Customers should pay for only one service, voice or data not both.... Worldwide operators charge only for data, and voice and messages are free... All voice calls for Jio customer will be absolutely free... The era of paying for voice calls is ending. Jio will usher India into the new era."

He said roaming charges will also be nil across India for Jio customers.

Stating that the data must be "affordable", he said Jio's base rate will be one-tenth of the prevailing data rates.

"In our data plans, the effective rates will be 5p per MB or Rs 50 per GB... The more data you use, the lower will be the rate," he said.

Differentiating Jio's 4G services from others in the market, he said that pricing strategy should be "simple" for every India.

"There are 22,000 telecom tariffs across country. Jio's pricing strategy only has 10 main plans," he said promising that Jio users would also not face any blackout days such as Diwali and New Year when operators tend to charge double.

Ambani also announced a discount offer for students under which they will get 25 percent more data on Jio's tariffs.

Under the free welcome offer, which Ambani termed as the largest introductory offer anywhere in the world, the company is offering free data, voice and video "to everyone absolutely free" starting September 5 till December 31, 2016.