Reliance Communications adds fuel to ongoing tariff fire, announces new offers

MUMBAI: Reliance Communications, the telecom unit of Anil Ambani's Reliance Group, launched a special tariff offer on Friday, further intensifying a price war that the industry is caught into.

The 'Joy of Holi' plans offer RCom's new 4G customers 1GB of data for Rs 49 and 3GB for Rs 149 for 28 days.

Both come with free and unlimited onnet local and STD calls. Mukesh Ambani controlled Reliance Jio Infocomm said earlier this month that it will start charging subscribers from April 1. But the sharp discounts it offered for a year for its existing 100 million users and those who sign up by end of March have kick off the next phase of the price war which has already hurt Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Vodafone India.

For a year from April 1, Jio's existing users and those who come on board between March 1 and 31 will continue to get 1GB of data a day plus all of its apps for Rs 303 a month and a one-time charge of Rs 99.

Despite being hit badly by the price war, Vodafone and Idea, India's No 2 and No 3 operators, have come up with new plans to counter Jio's offer. The two companies offer daily data benefit and free unlimited voice calls for their prepaid customers.

Reliance Communications (RCOM)