Here's how Reliance Jio launch may help you cut your phone bills

Jio will put an end to voice call charges in India as no Jio customer will ever have to pay for voice calls again, Mukesh Ambani, chairman, Reliance Industries, announced at the company's AGM in Mumbai today. The new tariff war unleashed by Reliance Jio is expected to force other telecom operators to slash their charges as well.

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, he said.

"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.

Starting Monday, September 5, Jio's boquet of apps, all services available for everyone absolutely free till 31 December 2016.

Other benefits of Jio, apart from free voice calls include:

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.

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.

Bharti Airtel is joining the battle for consumer's phone plans by offering peak download speeds of up to 135 mbps which is faster than what is normally available on 4G network.

The company said on Wednesday that it had introduced a 'carrier aggregation' technology in Mumbai and Kerala allowing it to offer faster and more stable 4G data services for mobile users.