Reliance Jio’s ‘Happy New Year’ plan will end on March 31 and the new tariff plans will begin from April 1. If there is anything to take away from Mukesh Ambani’s speech, there seems to be nothing new for the common Indian man. While keeping its promises of keeping domestic voice calls free, Jio has nothing new to offer data packs for the general Indian user. Mukesh Ambani, during the announcement, also said that Reliance Jio Infocomm has added 100 million subscribers on its 4G LTE network within six months, but how much is it actually ‘freebie’ and how much it is another ploy by a telecom company to earn revenues needs to be found out. With the way Reliance has been triggering the tariff war by introducing ‘free offers’, one needs to understand that incumbents like Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea have more to offer for all kinds of people, regardless of being a bit pricier in some ways. After Jio was launched commercially it has seen a steep rise in its subscriber base, mainly due to the lucrative tariffs that the company has been offering.
In the new offer, Reliance will make you a Jio Prime member by paying Rs 99 for a year. Paying this price will enable you to avail the erstwhile ‘Happy New Year’ offer by paying a sum of Rs 303 per month till March 2018. Jio Prime members can also avail the Jio media bouquet service free for one full year, till the same date. Ambani said that more plans for Jio Prime members will be unveiled at a later stage. While talking about the plan, Ambani specifically mentioned that the data will practically be available for almost Rs 10 per day. But is it really what it is being showcased as? Jio, till now, has never been made to be compared to be compared to other incumbents for obvious reasons. No other company gives you calling and data for free. But apart from that, we need to see if Jio is really offering what it has been advertising, or is there a catch?
Earlier, Ambani had announced the Happy New Year offer in which he unveiled some new tariff plans. While the simplest offer was, users will be getting 1GB extra 4G data for Rs 50. It said that it will charge 5 paise per MB. This essentially means that Jio offered a range of offers ranging from Rs 149 to Rs 4,999. Reliance said that the offer will range from Small (S) to XXXL. The small plan started at Rs 149 for 0.3GB data. Additionally, there is a Medium pack for Rs 499 for 4GB 4G data. The Large, XL, XXL and XXXL 4G packs are priced at Rs 999, Rs 1,499, Rs 2,499, Rs 3,999 and Rs 4,999, respectively. So, if Jio is not bringing any more plans, it doesn’t appear to be targetted at data users. There is no plan in between Rs 149 and Rs 499, but there are five other data plans between Rs 999 and Rs 4,999. To think about it, the medium user, however low he uses data is expected use at least more than 300MB. But that does not mean heavy data users will only use more than 4GB of data. There is nothing in between 0.3MB and 4GB, which is a huge difference, in data as well as expense. Similarly, 60 GB plan for Rs 3,999 and 75 GB plan for Rs 4,999, can actually be calculated to be coming down to Rs 66.66 per Gb instead of Rs 50, as claimed.
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All in all, the free voice calling feature will keep on luring customers, eventually increasing Jio’s subscriber base, but will Jio keep portraying its data plans to be better than they actually are? Let’s hope Jio has more to offer for its loyal customers in the future, else other network providers will start keeping up now, as the trail period for Reliance Jio is finally over.
