New Delhi: Forced by regulatory uncertainty over the review of sunset clause for call termination charges, billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio on Wednesday announced it will charge customers 6 paise per minute for voice calls made to rival phone networks but will compensate them by giving free data of equal value.
In a statement, Jio said the 6 paisa charge will remain in place till the time telecom operators are required to pay rivals for mobile phone calls made by their users to other operators' network.
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.
Telecom regulator TRAI in 2017 had slashed the so-called 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.
Since voice calls on Jio network are free, the company had to bear the Rs 13,500 crore payment made to rivals such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea. To recover the losses created by the TRAI move, the company has decided to charge customers 6 paise per minute for every call they make to a rival's network.
This will be the first time that Jio users will pay for voice calls.
Currently, Jio charges only for data, and voice calls to anywhere in the country and to any network are free.
"...The consultation paper has created regulatory uncertainty and therefore Jio has been compelled, most reluctantly and unavoidably, to recover this regulatory charge of 6 paise per minute for all off-net mobile voice calls so long as IUC charges exist," the statement said.
Jio also said it has, in the last three years, paid other operators like Airtel and Vodafone-Idea nearly Rs 13,500 crore as net IUC charges.
If you are a Jio customer, what you should do now?
In order to make a call to any non-Jio customer, you should get an IUC top-up voucher. However, this is applicable only to those Jio customers who will recharge after 10 October.
For instance, you have bought '28 Days plan' on 1 October. By using this pack, you continue to make free calls to all phone networks till the expiry of the plan period i.e. 28 October.
Whenever you are going for your next recharge after 28 October, you have to buy an additional IUC top-up voucher to make voice calls to non-Jio customers.
On purchase of each top-up, Jio will provide you additional data entitlement, which is equivalent in the value of IUC top-up voucher you bought.
For instance, you have bought a voucher worth Rs. 10 rupees. In that case, in addition to 124 call minutes to non-Jio Mobiles, you will get 1 GB additional data.
Read more: Diwali Bonanza: 50 lakh Government employees to benefit from highest ever DA hike
