Reliance Jio kills it with free voice calls & lowest 4G data tariffs at Rs 50/GB

BANGALORE, INDIA: At Reliance AGM today, Mukesh Ambani finally declared the commercial launch date of RJio and the much-awaited tariff structure for its 4G data.

The biggest surprise element in the announcement was that the company will not be charging for voice calls at all, which will probably take the the pricing war of operators to a new level altogether.

It will charge just one-tenth of what its competitors are charging for 4G data, with price points starting from Rs 19 for the occasional data user.

Reliance Jio SIMs will be available to all from September 5 and the users will get a complementary RJio-Apps subscription worth Rs 15,000 until December 31, 2017.

The company plans to cover 90% of India's population by March, 2017.

Addressing the shareholders, Mukesh Ambani said, "Imagine the power that we will be putting in the hands of common Indians, if we can give them a smartphone in their hands and use an always-available, broadband connection to link them to the power of the Internet."

RJio brings 10 plans in the price bands of Rs 19-4,999 covering limited data users to heaviest data users.

Here's the plan in detail:

RJio has also announced a special offer for students, under which any student, with a valid student ID card, will be able to get 25% more data on Jio's main tariffs.

On the device front, Reliance Digital will bring a lineup of super-affordable 4G LTE smartphones under its LYF brand, starting at Rs 2,999.

And for those users who are using 2G/3G handsets or any Wi-Fi capable feature phones, it is bringing a 4G LTE personal router, called Jio-Fi, for Rs 1,999.