Reliance Jio on Friday announced new tariff plans for JioPhone users to target customers in the feature phone segment.
The company has come out with four new monthly plans in the range of Rs 75 to 185 with 500 minutes of talk time for calls made to other networks.
Reliance Jio’s move to charge for interconnection usage charge of 6 paise per minute on outgoing calls made to other networks was seen as an inconvenience for customers by industry experts. The company then issued new plans for smartphone users with uniform IUC call provision in the range of Rs 222 to Rs 444.
According to the comparison chart of JioPhone tariff with one-month plan of its competition in Reliance Jio statement, the Rs 75 plan is higher than around Rs 65 being charged by some of the operators.
However, Jio has added 500 minutes IUC calls and 3 GB data along with free calls within its network while it claimed that rivals are offering around 233 minutes of total talk time and 200 MB of data only.
Similarly, in other plans priced at Rs 125, Rs 155 and Rs 185 with 28 days validity, Reliance Jio has added data in the range of 14 GB to 56 GB to poach feature phone users on its network.
Apart from this, the telecom company recently cut down the price of its medium price tariff plans of its existing plans and adjusting the interconnection usage charges (IUC) in them.
“The three-month 2 GB per day pack will now cost only Rs 444 instead of Rs 448 with additional 1,000 minutes of offnet IUC min which would have come at nearly Rs 80, separately,” Jio said in a statement.
Similarly, the company has brought down cost of its two-month plan to Rs 333 and offer additional 1,000 minutes of outgoing calls. The company claimed that based on IUC charge, the additional 1,000 minutes would have costed customers nearly Rs 80, separately.
The company has raised the price of Rs 198 monthly pack to Rs 222 by adjusting cost of IUC calls worth Rs 80 as it has done in other new plans.