Reliance Jio 's new postpaid plan has taken everyone by surprise. After brewing up a storm in the prepaid segment, which is still on the rise, Reliance Jio has taken the war to the postpaid segment as well. The new plan is priced at Rs 199 but offers benefits worth much more if one compares it to other service providers.
Postpaid has been exclusive to a small population mainly due to its extravagant prices which are mostly topped by extra charges leading to exorbitant bills. Two of the biggest competitors of Reliance Jio, Vodafone and Airtel have dominated the postpaid space so far.
Both companies have a loyal subscriber base but that can also be credited to the lack of options. Similar to Reliance Jio's disruption in the prepaid arena, the postpaid plan will definitely cause Vodafone and Airtel subscribers to have second thoughts about their current network.
Here's a comparison of the basic postpaid plans offered by all three service providers:
Vodafone Red and Airtel Infinity are two postpaid services that offer various benefits like Netflix subscription, Wynk membership and much more. To counter that Reliance Jio will be offering its own host of services which includes Jio apps and services at no additional costs.
The prices, however, have blown the competition out of the water. If Jio continues with the pricing strategy we can expect two things to happen. One, postpaid subscribers from other service providers will start porting to Reliance Jio. Second, the competition will level the playing field by introducing revised postpaid plans, similar to what happened to prepaid data packs after Reliance Jio jumped into action.
However, Reliance Jio will have to struggle harder in the postpaid segment as most users in this category value quality of service over price. Reliance Jio plans to counter this aspect with something that is bound to be a game changer, ISD calls at prices as low as 50p per minute depending on the country. Five years ago, these prices could easily be confused with local call charges. Reliance Jio won't charge for a security deposit or service charge on international calls from Jio Postpaid.
If the user plans to use the ISD services without any active plan, charges under Jio Postpaid will start from Rs 2 per minute for voice calls, Rs 2 for every MB of data and Rs 2 for every SMS.
Other Reliance Jio unlimited ISD plans include - Rs 575, Rs 2,875, and Rs 5,751 with 1 day, 7 days, and 30 days of validity respectively.
All three plans include unlimited voice calls (local calls in international destination and calls to India), unlimited SMS, and unlimited data with fair usage limits. The Rs 575 and Rs 2,875 plans offer 250MB high-speed data every day, whereas the Rs 5,751 has a limit of 5GB high speed without any daily caps. The internet speed will be throttled to 64kbps once past the FUP limit.
Reliance Jio users can keep a track of their postpaid bill online at any given instance and will receive a mail with the bill at the end of the month. The Jio Postpaid service will begin from May 15.
Even if Reliance Jio fails to impact the subscriber base of Airtel and Vodafone, the new plans and features will definitely entice prepaid consumers to make a shift which could even scavenge Jio's own prepaid subscriber base.