Reliance Jio unleashes war on telcos; top 10 takeaways from RIL’s 42nd AGM

NEW DELHI: Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Thursday unveiled the details of Reliance Jio launch at the company’s 42nd annual general meeting (AGM) in Mumbai.

Ambani dedicated Reliance Jio to realising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for a digital India for 1.2 billion Indians. India is ranked 155th in mobile broadband Internet access among 230 countries and with the launch of Jio, India's rank will be among the top 10, he said.

Mukesh Ambani said Reliance Jio will start offering service from September 5 and will be launched commercially on December 31. The new player will be offering data at Rs 50 per GB, which is lowest in the world.


In his speech, Ambani launched a tariff war, by unveiling data plans which are the cheapest in the world. With the launch of Reliance Jio, India will transform from a high price data market to the lowest priced data market, he said.

Data plans offered by Reliance Jio will be available at one/10th the prices offered by the incumbent telecom operators. Reliance Jio will provide free voice calls and remove blackout days and ensure more transparency in bills.

Ambani said customers should pay for only one service, either voice or data, and if it means changing the structure of industry, then it is prepared to do so.

We have collated the top 10 takeaways from the RIL AGM:

Number of tariff plans: Mukesh Ambani said the telecom tariff structure should be simple for every Indian to understand. Today, there are more than 22,000 telecom tariffs across the country. Jio plans to introduce 10 main plans.

"We have price points starting from Rs 19 for the occasional data user, to a monthly Rs 149 plan for the light data user and all the way up to a monthly Rs 4,999 plan for the heaviest data user," Ambani said.

Voice call: Jio will put an end to voice call charges in India. No Jio customer will ever have to pay for voice calls again, Ambani said at the AGM.

Data plans: Data packs in the market have an effective rate of about Rs 250 per GB. With Jio, customers have to pay 5 to 10 times lower price at Rs 25-50 per GB.

Ready for future technology: Jio's 4G network will cover 18,000 cities and towns, and over 2 lakh villages. By March 2017, Ambani plans to cover 90 per cent of India’s population.

“It is future-ready and it can be easily upgraded to support even more data, as technologies advance to 5G, 6G and beyond,” he said.

Handset: Reliance Jio will offer true 4G LTE smartphones starting from Rs 2,999 and Jio-Fi for Rs 1,999 to enable all Indians to migrate to Jio’s data strong network.

Apps: Jio apps subscription worth Rs 15,000 will be offered to customers as complimentary until December 31, 2017.

Special student discount: Ambani unveiled a special students discount offer, under which any student will be able to get 25 per cent more data on Jio’s main tariffs.

e-KYC: Customers can get a Jio connections within 15 minutes with e-KYC. Instant eKYC digital activations can be done in the store or at home.

Digital fund: Mukesh Ambani said the company has created a Jio DigitalIndia Startup Fund and is also working to create Digital Entrepreneurship Hubs in key cities.

Jio for young entrepreneurs: Jio has plans to partner with thousands of Indian entrepreneurs, to allow their digital ventures to bloom on the Jio platform.