After Airtel, Vodafone-Idea, Reliance Jio To Hike Mobile Tariffs; New Plans Coming Soon!

In what might come as a big surprise for Jio users, country's largest telecom operator on Tuesday announced that it will be looking at increasing prices of its services a day after its rivals Vodafone and Airtel rolled out something similar.

Both, Jio and Airtel might also increase the prices of their broadband services. (File Photo/ Getty)

Reliance Jio be looking at increasing prices of its services.

Earlier, both Airtel and Vodafone announced a tariff hike staring from Dec 1.

The ongoing telecom crisis is set to hit the customers hard.

New Delhi: In what might come as a big surprise for Jio users, country's largest telecom operator Reliance Jio on Tuesday announced that it will be looking at increasing prices of its services a day after its rivals Vodafone and Airtel rolled out something similar. According to reports, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance said that the move to increase mobile tariff is necessitated by the need to make fresh fresh network and technology investments. However, there is no clarity as to when the price hike will be implemented. Whenever it happens, this would be the first signification price hike by Jio which disrupted the telecom industry after launching its aggressive plans for mobile services in September 2016. "As per media reports, we understand that TRAI is likely to initiate a consultation process for revision of telecom tariffs. Like other operators, we will also work with the Government and comply with the regulatory regime to strengthen the industry to benefit Indian consumers and take measures including appropriate increase in tariffs in next few weeks in a manner that does not adversely impact data consumption or growth in digital adoption and sustains investments," Jio said in a statement. The company underlined its commitment to bringing the 40 crore 2G customers to experience and participate fully in the Digital India eco-system, and pledged its full support to providing the best quality and experience to all its customers. "This requires continued investment at an industry level. The whole industry needs to come up the curve and raise standards to meet the aspirations of Indian citizens and fulfill the nation's digital agenda," the statement added. Though none of the top three telecom operators have specified which services will see a price increase, but it is assumed that prices of all postpaid, prepaid telecom plans, including calls and data plans, will go up. Both, Jio and Airtel might also increase the prices of their broadband services. Confronted with intense competition and unprecedented statutory dues, older operators Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea had on Monday announced a hike in mobile phone call and data charges from December saying the increase was warranted for viability of their business. Like Jio, the two telcos did not quantify the increase in rates but instead said that the hike will be effective beginning next month. A TRAI source told news agency PTI earlier on Tuesday that the telecom regulator will wait for operators to report their new tariffs to the authority before taking a view on whether the revised pricing is within the regulatory framework. The ongoing telecom crisis is set to hit the customers hard with two of the country's largest telcos -- Bharti Airtel and Vodafone -- deciding to hike tariffs from December 1 after they posted historic losses on account of provisioning for the AGR pending dues. Both the players, however, did not announce the quantum of hike that is expected to be worked out between now and December 1. "The telecom sector is highly capital intensive with fast changing technology cycles that require continuing investments. It is, therefore, extremely important that the industry remains viable to support the vision of Digital India," Bharti Airtel had said in a statement. "Accordingly, Airtel will appropriately increase price offerings in the month beginning December," it added. Vodafone had also noted that the acute financial stress in the telecom sector has been acknowledged by all stakeholders and a high-level committee of secretaries (CoS) headed by the Cabinet Secretary is looking into providing appropriate relief. Vodafone Idea Ltd had said that it would "suitably increase the prices of its tariffs" effective from December 1. Currently, the India telecom industry is going through a hard phase on the backdrop of competition which has put pressure on all telecom companies. Recently, Vodafone and Airtel have been hit by AGR dues of around Rs 80,000 crore that it has to pay to the government.

Published at : 19 Nov 2019 10:17 PM (IST)

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