In a first, country's largest telcom operator Reliance
Jio
today announced that its customers will now have to pay 6 paise per
minute for voice calls made to rival phone networks. However, the
company also announced that it will compensate customers by giving free
data of equal value. The 6 paisa
charge will remain in place till the
time telecom operators are required to pay rivals for mobile phone
calls, Jio said in a statement.
The company said for all the outgoing calls to other mobile operators,
Jio users will have to buy an additional IUC top up voucher from
tomorrow. Post-paid customers will also be billed at 6 paise per minute
for outgoing calls with increase in free data entitlement. This will be
the first time that Jio users will pay for voice calls.
Jio will provide following top-up vouchers for customers:
| IUC Top-Up Voucher Amount (Rs) |
IUC Minutes (non-Jio mobiles) |
Free Data Entitlement (GB) |
| 10 |
124 |
1 |
| 20 |
249 |
2 |
| 50 |
656 |
5 |
| 100 |
1,362 |
10 |
Jio, however, said these charges are not applicable on calls made by
Jio users to other Jio phones and to landline phones and calls made
using WhatsApp, FaceTime and other such platforms. Incoming calls from
all networks will continue to be free.
Justifying the new charges, Jio said it has paid nearly Rs 13,500 crore as IUC charges to the rivals such as
Bharti AirtelNSE 5.23 % and Vodafone Idea. in the last three years. The company said it has decided to charge customers to recover the IUC losses.
Additionally, Jio, said it will ensure priority allocation of the JioPhone to frequently called 2G users from our Jio consumers.
Jio will provide additional data entitlement of equivalent value based
on IUC top-up voucher consumption. This will ensure no increase in
tariff for customers.
Currently, Jio charges only for data, and voice calls to anywhere in the country and to any network are free.
Telecom regulator TRAI in 2017 had slashed the interconnect usage charge
(IUC) to 6 paise per minute from 14 paise and had said this regime will
end by January 2020. But it has now floated a consultation paper to
review whether the regime timeline needs to be extended.
Jio said it has, in last three years, paid
other operators like Airtel and Vodafone-Idea nearly Rs 13,500 crore as
net IUC charges.