Data Plans on Reliance Jio Likely to Cost You More in 2018: Report

The telecom operator is likely to reduce validity period for its 4G data plans very soon.

Reliance Jio will have to devise new ways to get more users now.

(Photo: The Quint)

Reliance Jio is likely to increase the price of its 4G data plans in 2018. This prediction has been made by Open Signal in a report, which clearly means that Jio might stop offering bundled 3-month plans and instead charge its users for each month.

Ever since Jio started its services back in 2016, the Mukesh Ambani-owned telecom entity has been showering goodies, freebies and attractive data plans (with free voice calls for lifetime), which has helped the operator to sign up over 130 million users in a short span.

But looks like the honeymoon period for Jio users will be over real soon. This became evident recently, when Jio, probably for the first time, decided to increase the price of its 4G data plans, or managed to reduce the validity period available with plans.

Also Read: Reliance Jio Revises 4G Tariff Plans, Get 1GB Data for Rs 459 Now

Jio’s new step – if introduced – would come after over a year of discounted 4G data that have seen the lowest-ever tariffs in the country. While this helped the country go to the top of data consumption chart, it meant an intense war to retain consumers in the telecom industry.

Jio’s widespread 4G access, along with its at-first free and later heavily discounted data and voice plans, quickly won the hearts – and wallets – of more than 100 million mobile users across the country.

Andrea Toth, OpenSignal

Barely six months in the market this year, Jio secured its lead in the 4G availability race, "with users able to access its LTE signals 91.6 percent of the time, which was higher than other incumbent operators.

While LTE availability saw a meteoric rise, the same cannot be said of 4G speeds.

Open Signal also released its State of LTE report recently, which states that India occupied the lowest spot among the 77 countries examined, with average download speeds of 6.1 Mbps, over 10 Mbps lower than the global average.

As the adoption of 4G saw a marked rise, and more and more consumers subscribed to 4G services, leading to network congestion, that had a direct effect on the average download speeds across different operator networks.

Now, coming back to Jio, it remains to be seen how consumers, who’ve been spoilt with cheap data plans, respond to the upcoming changes, which could go either way for the telco, pushing the initiative back to the likes of Airtel and Vodafone.

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