Jio – the much hyped about network from Mukesh Ambani and his son is all set to change the structure of the telecom industry in India. At the 42nd Annual General Meeting of Reliance Industries, Mukesh Ambani unveiled the launch dates and the tariff plans for Jio and declared a war on the current telecommunication companies in India.
Jio plans to start its services from September 5th 2016 and a commercial launch on December 31st 2016 (which means all users can enjoy their services for free until the commercial launch). Here are their tariff plans:
Some key points:
Free Voice
Mukesh Ambani believes that telcos should either charge for voice or data (not both). Based on this principle, Jio will only be charging its customers for the data. Voice calls – local, long distance and roaming to any network in India will be absolutely free. This is first of its kind tariff structure and is surely going to shake the market. Jio was originally planned to be a data only network. The VoLTE capabilities were added later and are still being fine tuned and improved. It is a scalable and future ready network capable of supporting future network standards. The idea behind this tariff plan is simple – Come for the voice, stay for the data. Even if the voice calls in the network aren’t as good now as they can potentially be, they are free – thereby eliminating customer frustration in the initial phase of the launch.
Devices
Jio already has a range of LYF branded devices tested and ready to be used on the network. They have handsets available from ? 2999 to enable almost everyone to come and join the network.
App ecosystem
Jio is building a really strong ecosystem of apps ranging from entertainment, finance, media and instant messengers. Currently, app ecosystems are owned and governed by your handset’s OS (Apple’s App store vs. Google Play). The idea behind building such a strong collection of apps is to break free from the ties with your handset platform. Jio’s apps work seamlessly on both iOS and Android.
Data
As Jio is a data first network, they have made broadband really affordable for everyone. The average data tariff on the Jio network will be ? 50 per GB as opposed to ? 250 per GB on other networks. This is going to start a mobile broadband revolution in India. Jio leverages 4G LTE data network offering data services capable of reaching 100 Mbps.
Overall, Jio’s vision looks very promising and should help India get to the top 10 in the world for mobile internet access. It is going to be very cost effective for the customers to switch to Jio, enjoy free voice calls and get introduced to the endless possibilities of life with mobile broadband.
[via ET]
