Reliance Jio has definitely heated up the Indian telecom market and its rivals are coming up with new plans to counter its free call and data facility. Today, Vodafone, the second largest telecom operator, came up with two new packs of unlimited free voice calls for its prepaid customers.
Yesterday only, the number one telecom operator Airtel and Idea Cellular, which comes on number 3, announced various schemes to combat with Jio’s plans.
Airtel and Idea launched similar schemes which offer free calls and limited Internet usage at Rs. 150 and Rs. 350 with the validity for 28 days.
Vodafone’s new plan offers unlimited calling on recharges above Rs. 144 and other facilities with this pack include 50 MB (3G) or 300 MB (4G) free data and free roaming on Vodafone network and for recharges above Rs. 344, it offers unlimited free calls, free roaming on all mobiles network plus free data of 50 MB (3G) and 1 GB (4G) for 4G handset users.
Vodafone’s chief commercial officer, Sandeep Kataria, said that these plans can be used by 2G, 3G and 4G customers and they come with the validity of 28 days.
The plans of Idea and Airtel offer 1GB of 4G data to 4G handset users and 50MB for those who don’t use 4G mobiles. Airtel is offering free calls within its network for just Rs. 149 while this plan is available in Idea for just Rs. 148. Under these plans, both these telecom players will give 300 MB (4G) to 4G handset users and 50 MB to non-4G handset users.
The public sector player BSNL is also planning of coming out in January with a prepaid plan which may be less than Rs. 149 and will offer free calls to any network.
The public sector player BSNL is also planning of coming out in January with a prepaid plan which may be less than Rs. 149 and will offer free calls to any network.
As of now, Reliance Jio is offering its customers 4G service including free calls and data till March 2017 and it has made 52 million customers in just 83 days after its launch.
The plans launched by other telecom operators are very similar to the proposed plan of Jio @Rs. 149, in which Jio will offer free calls to all networks in India with 28 days validity and no roaming charges. The plan also offers 300 MB (4G) data usage during day while for night, it is offering unlimited usage. Other than this, Jio has also included in its proposed plan unlimited use of its apps including music, TV, movie plus video call and SMS will be free.
