Vodafone’s new offer- 4GB at Rs 250 to take on Reliance Jio

The incumbent operators’ persistent efforts to attract customers with lucrative offers and discounts are the proof that they all are having a tough time standing up to Reliance Jio’s mammoth challenge. Vodafone that recently launched Rs 1,501 data pack with 1-year recharge benefits, has come up with a new deal offering 4GB of 4G data for Rs 250 and 22GB for Rs 999.

The Rs 250 plan, which initially offered 1GB of 4G data, now offers 4GB of data, whereas the Rs 999 plan previously offered 10GB of 4G data will now offer users 22GB of 4G data for the same money.

“Our customers are consuming more of content and video online. With these super rich data packs, our rapidly growing base of 4G customers across 17 circles can enjoy much more of the mobile internet while remaining confidently connected on Vodafone SuperNet 4G. It will also encourage first time and limited users of the mobile internet to explore more by providing greater value. They can access four times more of their favourite content online for the same cost in a truly worry free manner,” said Sandeep Kataria, Chief Commercial Officer, Vodafone India.

The company has updated its other packs also such as Rs 150 for 1GB, Rs 350 for 6GB, Rs 450 for 9GB, Rs 650 for 13GB, and Rs 1500 for 35GB. The prices of these recharge packs may differ from one circle to the other.

Meanwhile, Reliance Jio, moving consistently to reach its targeted aim of reaching 100 million users before March, has already garnered 72.4 million subscribers, according to the Q3 report Financial and Operational Performance of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). The report also points out that "the call drops issue is still persisting."

As the company has been blaming other telecom operators for the call drops, the latest report also states the same. “The POI capacity provided by these operators is still way below requirement and is falling short of the customer addition pace of Jio, resulting in a quality of service issues for Indian customers. The resultant call failure rates continue to be of the order of 175 calls failing out of every 1,000 calls from Jio to Airtel network when the QoS regulations mandate that no more than 5 calls out of every 1,000 calls can fail,” stated the report.

The ongoing tussle between the incumbent telecom operators has further led to a high rate of call drops for Reliance Jio. Therefore, the Attorney-General has approved the TRAIs recommendation of imposing a hefty penalty of Rs 3,050 crore on Airtel (Rs 1050cr), Vodafone (Rs 1050cr), and Idea Cellular (Rs 950cr) for violating quality of service rules.