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Domestic voice calls to any network will be free from April 1: Mukesh Ambani

all domestic voice calls will always remain free and there will be no roaming charges,” Mukesh Ambani

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DQC Bureau
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As Reliance Jio’s ‘Happy New Year’ plan is coming to an end with March 31 being the last date, the tariff plans will begin from April 1. But there is nothing to worry about as “all domestic voice calls will always remain free and there will be no roaming charges,” Mukesh Ambani said at a press briefing. He also said that Reliance Jio Infocomm has added 100 million subscribers on its network, in less than six months of the launch of its mobile telephony services, which introduced a barrage of free data and voice offerings in order to grab the market share. “Today, just 170 days since its launch, Jio has crossed the 100 million customer mark on its 4G LTE network! Jio has added, on average, nearly 7 customers on its network every second of every day. To all our customers, I say thank you”.

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Not just this, he also announced the launch of Jio Prime membership programme, that will open from March 1 and will remain open till March 31. Those who are already subscribers and those who join Jio before March 31, join a year plan for a fee of Rs 99. Jio Prime members can continue to benefit from Jio New Year offer for another 12 months, the scheme will be for a price of Rs 300/month for another full year. More value plans will be announced for Jio Prime members soon and details will be provided on My Jio app. Jio Prime members can also get the Jio media bouquet service free for a full year till March 31, 2018. Jio Prime members will also benefit from a line up of deals from Jio and its partners.

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Reliance Industries, India’s largest business conglomerate, launched its much awaited telecommunication venture Reliance Jio Infocomm last year with a whopping Rs 1.5 trillion investments to start with, mainly in building high-speed internet infrastructure over the new 4G/LTE network across the entire country. It topped it up with an announcement of a further investment of Rs 30,000 crore in December.

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Reliance Jio has said it has been adding 600,000 new users per day had already added 72.4 million customers as on December 31 on its network since launch in a hyper competitive market.

Reliance Jio’s entry into the telecom space has forced the incumbent players to relook at their market positions and consolidate their operations to survive the competition. Vodafone India and Idea Cellular have said that the two companies are in talks to merge their operations, and are learnt to be looking to seal the deal in a month.

On the other hand, Tata Teleservices is reported to be mulling joining the planned R-Comm-Aircel-MTS combine. The proposed merger, if it sails through, would make it the third largest operator in the rejigged order, far behind Idea-Vodafone combine, and very close to Bharti Airtel, in terms of the number of subscribers. Vodafone India has 205 million users, Idea Cellular has 190 million and Bharti Airtel has 266 million, while Tata-Tele-R-Comm-Aircel-MTS would have about 260 million put together.

Reliance Jio has led to the established operators drastically cut tariffs – as much as by 66% – in order to retain their customer base, and has put the entire sector under tremendous pressure of choosing between protecting margins and user base. Reliance Jio recently extended its inaugural free voice and data plan till March 31 drawing complaints and criticisms from its biggest rivals Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, who assert that its anti-competitive practices and freebies are hurting the industry. Vodafone earlier went as far as to write down the value of its India business on hyper competition from the new entrant.

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