Reliance Jio’s Free Call offer clears the TRAI Test

Last month, India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, made a grandiose entry into the telecom sector, announcing a Jio Welcome Offer which gives unlimited free calls to its subscribers for lifetime.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), in order to boost Reliance Jio, which is offering life-time free voice calling service, has held that tariff plans of the new player are compliant to the present rules and not discriminatory.

TRAI’s letter to the telecom operators read, it has found that the tariff plans filed with Trai cannot be considered as IUC non-complaint, predatory and discriminatory, as of now.

Incumbent carriers Vodafone, Bharti Airtel, and others proceeded towards TRAI against free call service being given by Reliance Jio, claiming that the tariff plan is predatory, discriminatory and non-compliant to present rules.

Telecom operators need to pay 14 paise per minute for every outgoing call from their network to the carrier on whose network the call finally lands.

Reacting to the Trai letter, Jio in a statement said that this (Trai’s letter) distinctly establishes the fact that all the tariffs given by RJIL are in compliance with the ongoing regulations. A chief feature of RJIL’s tariff packs is free voice calling for Local, STD and National roaming for all times.

Apart from this, it is also offering unlimited free 4G mobile broadband till 31 December. Rival telecom carriers had also contested free data service given by Jio beyond 90 days but same have been set aside by the regulator. The free service includes unlimited mobile data. Basically, all services- voice and data- are free for all subscribers till December 31. After that, Jio will price 1GB of data at about Rs. 50 on average, about one-fifth of what rivals charge.

TRAI is of the view that the reviewed offer of free services by Reliance Jio has been limited to 90 days i.e. December 3, 2016 and thus is consistent with the guidelines on promotional offers.

The company further added that as per RJIL’ s filing with the Trai, the Jio Welcome Offer is going to be available to all the customers for subscription till 3 December, 2016. RJIL wishes to reconfirm that JWO benefits of free unlimited voice and data will continue to be available to all subscribers till 31 December, 2016. The consumers who cannot subscribe to its services till December 3, 2016 will keep getting opportunities to avail new offers and tariff plans.

RJIL aims to provide the experience of Jio Digital life to all Indians and in order to achieve this it will continue coming up with more pocket friendly offers and plans to enhance the consumer experience. Rivals have been forced by Jio’s aggressive pricing to cut their own rates. Mr. Ambani has set a target of 100 million customers for Reliance Jio in the shortest possible time.