GUWAHATI: Telecom giant, Reliance Jio today announced that its customers will be charged 6 paise per minute for voice calls made to other cellular networks.
The company said for all the outgoing calls to other mobile operators, Jio users will have to buy an additional IUC top up voucher from tomorrow.
This is the first time Jio users will pay for voice calls.
"Jio will provide additional data entitlement of equivalent value based on IUC top-up voucher consumption. This will ensure no increase in tariff for customers," Jio said.
Telecom regulator TRAI in 2017 had slashed the 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.
Currently, Jio only charges for data and voice calls to anywhere in the country is free.
New Jio Interconnect Usage Charge (IUC) plans:
Jio is offering four new IUC plans with extra data benefits. Here are all the plans listed with the benefits:
--Rs 10 plan will offer 124 minutes of IUC minutes to non-Jio numbers and 1GB data.
--Rs 20 plan will offer 249 minutes of IUC minutes to non-Jio numbers and 2GB data.
--Rs 50 plan will offer 656 minutes of IUC minutes to non-Jio numbers and 5GB data.
--Rs 100 plan will offer 1,362 minutes of IUC minutes to non-Jio numbers and 10GB data.
