All Jio customers will be in a position to make totally free domestic limitless voice calls to shoppers of Vodafone-Idea, Airtel, BSNL and other telecom networks from January 1.
With impact from January 1, Reliance Jio customers will be in a position to make ‘free’ domestic voice calls to non-Jio shoppers. This is mainly because TRAI is ending Interconnect Usage Charges (IUC) for all domestic voice calls from 1st January 2021 and Jio is “honouring its commitment to revert off-net domestic voice-call charges to zero.” On-net domestic voice calls have often been totally free for Jio customers.
This indicates all Jio customers will be in a position to make totally free domestic voice calls to shoppers of Vodafone-Idea, Airtel, BSNL and other telecom networks from January 1. Since late 2019, Jio customers have been essential to spend 6 paise per minute for each and every voice contact produced to a non-Jio customer–though Jio did sweeten the deal by supplying totally free 1GB of information for each and every 10-rupee paid. Jio to Jio domestic voice calls have remained totally free considering that the time the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) began Jio 4G operations in India in 2016.
“When TRAI extended the timeline for implementation of the Bill & Keep regime beyond 1st January 2020, Jio was left with no option but to start charging its customers for offnet voice calls, at a rate exactly equivalent to the applicable IUC charge,” Jio stated in a statement, adding that, “today, Jio has made off-net voice calls free again” following TRAI’s choice to abolish IUC charges from January 1.
What is IUC?
Interconnect Usage Charge or IUC is the price tag 1 telco has to spend to the other when its shoppers make outgoing calls to their shoppers. This price tag which is set by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India or TRAI is at present fixed 6 paise/minute.
In line with this directive, Jio has been charging its shoppers an equivalent amount–6 paise/minute–for creating calls to non-Jio networks. With the directive coming to an finish on January 1, Jio is generally rolling back these charges creating its ‘voice’ service practically totally free for customers when once more. Jio, when it was launched in 2016, and just before TRAI’s ruling in 2019, was supplying totally free Jio to Jio and Jio to non-Jio customers.