From today onwards Reliance Jio starts charging its customers 6 paise per minute for voice calls made to users of another telecom network. This would have no doubt come as a surprise for Jio subscribers who have been enjoying free voice calls so far. Jio, which entered the Indian telecom market with a bang a few years ago and created a major tariff war ever since said on Wednesday that it was ‘compelled’ to charge its users 6 paise/minute.
Jio is doing this to recover the 6 paise/minute IUC (Interconnect Usage Charge) that the company pays other telcos to use their network during calls. Customers will have to pay IUC charges until TRAI brings the fee down to zero, which is expected to happen on January 1, 2020. As per the new regulation is already effect that what other telecom networks are saying:
Under the new regulations, a Jio subscriber calling someone using a different operator like Airtel or Vodafone-Idea will be charged 6 paise per minute till the time you keep ringing. The 6 paise per minute charge will be made through IUC top-up vouchers. Also, Jio is offering four new IUC plans that also come with additional data benefits in order to ensure there is no increase in tariff for customers.
Here are things to remember:
- The Rs 10 plan offers 124 IUC minutes to non-Jio numbers and 1GB additional data.
- The Rs 20 plan offers 249 IUC minutes and 2GB data.
- The Rs 50 plan offers 656 IUC minutes and 5GB data.
- The Rs 100 plan offers 1,362 IUC minutes and 10GB data.
