It may be a good news for the Internet users who can soon spend the little, but get the more on their data usage. Keeping the existing exorbitant prices at bay, they can avail any data packs at much cheaper price than ever before as almost all telecom firms have teamed up for slashing data prices in competitive phased manner to drive mobile internet penetration and adoption across the country.
The customer-friendly move comes at a time when each and every telecom player wants to strengthen its subscriber base ahead of the Reliance Jio’s entry into the market. Telecom majors including Airtel, Idea Cellular, Aircel among others have already cut their data prices considerably, while Vodafone will announce its turn anytime soon this week. Some of them including Idea have already also reduced the prices of 3G/4G data pack twice in the first phase of the data service price wars.
According to top industry sources, it is expected that the telecom firms will also further lower the price in second phase by around 20-25 per cent after reviewing the Reliance Jio’s market price for Indian consumers who are eagerly waiting for its mega launch on 4G services that could most likely happen in the month of September or before.
“As Reliance Jio has already made a strong consumer base before its launch following its promise of cheaper data service for its subscribers, there may be a big jump of switching consumers to Jio from other existing telecom service providers. Sensing this development, almost all telecom firms may further slash the data price by upto 20-25 per cent in second phase after reviewing the post launch of Jio’s data rates,” sources said.
Confirming the development, Director General of Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) Rajan S Mathew said, “Yes, many of our member operators have cut their data prices recently. Reliance Jio has begun to offer ‘pre-launch free calling’ which may attract many of the price sensitive pre-paid customers. It is not clear what will be the ‘commercial pricing’ to be offered by Reliance Jio when they launch commercial service. Robust competition will continue to ensure affordable service pricing for consumers.”
When asked whether any of your members have discussed with the association in this regard, Mathew added, “Pricing and tariffs are never a matter discussed at COAI among our members. One of the aims of COAI is to ensure a robust, vibrant and fair, competitive environment which focuses on the benefits for the customer.”
Though telecom service providers give reasons to smile on the cheaper tariff for subscribers, the validity issue remains in question and causes concern for the net users. To popularise the internet, the telecom watchdog Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), however, wants longer validity of 365 days instead of shorter validity periods like 90 days or less. “longer validity of 365 days instead of the current 90 days or less could be beneficial for marginal consumers, first-time users and price-sensitive consumers,” TRAI had said recently.
In order to justify the consumers’ demand, the regulator early this month had issued a draft regulation, revising the validity period of special tariff vouchers for data usage to a year, compared with the present norms that limit validity to 90 days. “Comments on the draft regulation are sought till July 26, after which amendments to the Telecom Consumers Protection Regulations will be made,” it said.
As far as data price war is concerned, telecom companies are all set to reduce the price of their data packs as low as possible in all circles across the country to attract more subscribers into their base. According to TRAI’s recent data, total number of subscribers has gone up to around 777 million in June 2016, while Airtel tops the list with 255.73 million of subscribers. On the other hand, the subscribers’ base increased in June only has reached 3.50 million.
Sources, however, said that the entry of Reliance Jio could replace any top telecom major in terms of subscribers’ base due to introduction of its initial free offer of voice-services bundled with data to their perspective customers.
“Reliance Jio is offering free voice-services bundled with data. Both data and voice service is free for the first 90 days. The speed-tests we conducted on Reliance Jio 4G SIM have given us pretty good results, with average download speeds of 15-18 Mbps in Delhi. Jio has already added some subscribers and numbers are increasing day by day much before its entry. Therefore, it looks the company may lead the customer base after its mega launch shortly,” the sources added.
Recently, Idea Cellular slashed its data pack charges second time in a week, when it announced a promotional 67 per cent reduction in 3G and 4G data tariffs for prepaid users. The move comes as rival Airtel unveiled revised rates for its 3G/4G data packs, giving users an increased data benefit of up to 67 per cent. Idea had earlier announced up to 45 per cent more data benefits on sachet packs below 1GB.