New Delhi: The much-awaited commercial launch of Reliance Jio 4G services could happen on August 15. Jio services are currently available only for the company’s employees and customers who buy a LYF smartphone. All that and more could change, if reports are to be believed.
According to a report in the Economic Times, Jio’s first plan will be called ‘Freedom’, which will offer free local and STD calls bundled with data, priced at least 25 percent lower than current offerings of top rivals. The company may launch its services on Independence Day giving users freedom from having to pay for voice calls, the report said.
To get the Freedom plan, Reliance Jio users will have to buy data packs which are priced from Rs 80 for 1GB of data.
The launch of the Freedom plan, and the free calls that are set to come along with it, are set for a big impact on the industry. The move could see rivals tweak their pricing significantly after Jio’s launch to compete, though they will still get a bulk of revenue from voice calls.
Reliance Jio already has over 6 million users now, which include around 1.5 million of its own users, and another 4.5 million Reliance Communications consumers who switched their CDMA connections to 4G. A recent report by the company claims that Jio has already bagged the sixth position in India for data usage, with its users having consumed 13 million GB of data at an average 0.6GB per user.
Recently Reliance Lyf, the smartphone brand of the company, has already bagged the top five spots when it comes to smartphone vendors in India. There was a price cut announced on budget Lyf phones earlier this month, with the cheapest 4G phones available at Rs 2,999. The Lyf smartphone comes bundled with Reliance Jio connection with three months of data service free.
