A day after shocking consumers by increasing plan prices by around 20-40%, Reliance Jio has re-introduced the Rs 149 unlimited plan, but with a shorter validity and lower daily data allowance.
The original Rs 149 plan used to offer 1.5 GB of daily data for four weeks (28 days) and was the most affordable monthly plan from the operator for those who wanted both data and voice.
However, last month, when Jio started putting fair usage caps on outgoing calls to other networks, the validity of this plan was cut short to 24 days. However, the daily data allowance was maintained at 1.5 GB/day.
Today, Jio has again listed the Rs 149 pack, but after cutting both the daily data allowance and the validity.
The daily data allowance has been slashed to 1 GB per day, while the validity has been brought down to three weeks (21 days) from 24 days earlier.
At this rate, the plan costs Rs 215 on average per month, making it the second most affordable daily data plan from Jio under the new plans. announced by operators, including Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea.
The most affordable daily data plan in the country is also from Jio and costs Rs 555 for 84 days, giving a per-month cost of Rs 201.
However, unlike the 149 plan, the 555 plan offers 1.5 GB per day, despite costing Rs 14 less per month.
Airtel’s monthly 1 GB/day plan costs Rs 248 for 28 days, or Rs 270 per month.
However, Idea offers a somewhat comparable plan as it has priced its four-week, 1GB/day pack at only Rs 219, which implies a cost of Rs 238 per month.
DATA PRICES
Even though the 149 plan costs only around Rs 7.10 per day, and is among the cheapest unlimited plans in India, it is by no means cheap when one looks at the per-GB cost.
With a cost of Rs 7.1/GB, Jio’s 149 plan ranks among the costliest plans from a data pricing perspective.
The cheapest plan, from the data perspective, is Jio’s 599 pack with 84 days of validity.
The 599 pack offers 1 GB of data at a cost of Rs 3.57.
The cheapest non-Jio pack, from a data perspective, is offered by Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, and costs Rs 698 or 699. Per-GB costs under these plans work out to around Rs 4.15, which is 16% costlier than the comparable pack from Jio (see chart on top).