Reliance Jio, India's largest telecom operator, has removed two very popular plans from its offering. The first plan is the Rs 189 option, which was an entry-level offering from the telco for the users to keep their SIM active. The Rs 189 plan used to cost Rs 155 before the tariff hikes were implemented in July 2024. But now, even that plan is not available for customers. Another plan, the Rs 479 prepaid option has been removed by Jio after the arrival of voice and SMS-only plans.
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At present, the attention of the customers and the industry is on the voice and SMS-only plans. At such a moment, Jio has silently removed two of its super affordable plans which allowed users to keep their SIM cards active at a low cost. Reliance Jio's move aligns with the industry's efforts to boost the average revenue per user (ARPU) figure. However, Jio customers will certainly not like the scenario where they have to now choose a higher tariff plan.
The Rs 479 plan used to come with 84 days of service validity, and offered unlimited voice calling with 1000 SMS and 6GB of data. Since TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) mandated the telcos to bring new plans with only voice and SMS benefits, the telcos have shown that they won't back down from their efforts to boost their revenues. They have introduced plans that almost cost the same on a daily average, but now don't bundle data.
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In fact, Jio has made it such a way that users with Jio's voice and SMS-only plans can't even use data vouchers on top of these plans. So users who are recharing with Jio's voice and SMS only plans need to be sure that they won't need mobile data at all, because once recharged, they won't have any other option than to use Wi-Fi for internet.