Reliance Jio has finally decided it’s time to start charging customers for its 4G data. The company has stuck to its promise of giving free voice calls to all networks without any roaming charges.
But with Jio Prime, Reliance has somewhat ensured that not all of the claimed 100 million customers on its Jio network move away, now that Jio 4G isn’t free.
Available to existing Jio customers, one can subscribe to Jio Prime by paying Rs 99 and thereby extending access to the plan available via Jio Happy New Year Offer right now, for the next 12 months.
Jio will reveal its new set of 4G plans in the coming months, but for now, we decided to take a look at how the Jio Prime lines up against current prepaid plan from Airtel, Vodafone and Idea.
Jio vs Airtel
Even if Jio charges for data, Airtel still has a long way to go before expecting people to choose them over Jio. For Rs 99 (one year) and then Rs 303 every month, you get 1GB per day use, making it 30GB for the month. While Airtel is giving a mere 1GB for 28 days at Rs 349. If Airtel wants to compete with Jio (and they will), the plan needs to come down even further.
Jio vs Vodafone
When compared to Airtel, Vodafone has been more generous with its latest 4G prepaid plans. If he/she has a 4G handset, you can avail data up to 6GB at Rs 350 with unlimited voice calls (local/STD) on offer. Also, you don’t have incoming roaming charges. Still short of the Jio Prime package, but with Vodafone, there’s hope.
Jio vs Idea 4G
Idea is matching up to Airtel in comparison to Jio Prime, and with talks of a Vodafone-Idea merger in the pipeline, we’re not sure as to how it will pan out in future. Vodafone and Idea could hugely benefit from the alliance, making them the biggest telecom operators in the country, with more users than Airtel and Reliance Jio.
But we can only talk about that once the deal comes to fruition and both brands combine to form a single force.
All said and done, sticking to Jio 4G via Prime, it still looks to be the best bet for us. We expect many free users to get off the network, easing up speed and performance of Jio on the whole.
Calling should also become more accessible than what it is right now. This isn’t the last we’ve heard from either Jio or the trio competing with it. More plans in the offing, and it’ll be interesting to see who budges first.
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