Reliance Jio has unveiled a new, low cost postpaid or contract plan under which it offers 25 GB of data with no daily limits and unlimited voice and data for Rs 199 per month.
The plan is priced at about half that of competing offers from rivals like Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular.
The plan also tends to offer similar tariffs to the prepaid offerings, something that is at variance with industry practice.
“JioPostpaid brings a differentiated connected living experience to postpaid users and will once again challenge the industry status-quo by offering the lowest tariffs in India and abroad to the postpaid users, who end up paying disproportionately higher as compared to the prepaid segment,” the company said.
Postpaid or contract users comprise only around 3-4% of the total mobile customer base in India.
This is primarily due to two reasons — postpaid plans tend to be costlier, and billing procedures at most companies tend to be less than transparent.
Disputes in postpaid bills can prove to be costly, both from a money perspective as well as time perspective.
Jio said it aims to protect users from ‘bill shock’ by making voice unlimited, and data capped at 25 GB.
It is not clear whether a user will have the option of using top-ups once he or she runs out of the monthly data quota. Some telecom operators, for example, allow their postpaid customers to use prepaid recharges as well, to supplement their usage.
Jio also said it will be possible for its post paid customers to check their usage in real time on their app.
The postpaid plan, however, will make more sense for people whose data consumption is not uniform.
For example, in the prepaid segment, a Rs 198 recharge can give you 2 GB of data per day for 28 days, or 56 GB in all, while the postpaid plan offers only 25 GB.
However, most people who are on the 2GB plan actually consume only about 12-13 GB in a month as they are not able to consume their full daily quota every day.
On the other hand, on weekends and holidays, these users often exhaust their 2GB daily quota in a few hours, leaving them to rely on other sources of Internet for their entertainment for the rest of the day.