Vodafone Idea has responded to Reliance Jio’s allegations about rivals and the decision to price voice calls from its mobile users to rival networks.
Reliance Jio’s decision to charge for calls made to other telecom service providers to cover the termination charge of IUC does not bring out the fact that interconnect is a settlement between operators and not a consumer pricing matter, Vodafone Idea said.
This announcement comes closely to the action taken recently to potentially hurt revenues of other operators with its recent unilateral action of reducing ringing time.
Over 50 percent of Indians use 2G and feature phones. Vodafone Idea services them in remote parts of the country even when it is unprofitable for the telecom operator.
Vodafone Idea said consumers are not on a position to distinguish between on net and off net calls and “we do not want to burden our subscribers with the inconvenience of trying to do so. All our plans cater to both on net and off net calls and you do not need to buy separate vouchers to do so.”
More than 60 percent of consumers of Vodafone Idea have low spends and do not need expensive plans where the commitments are high and so you need to spend large sums of money.
Vodafone Idea customers can use the network for 28 days for Rs 24 or buy an unlimited voice plan with 1GB Data for Rs 119 for 28 days.
Consumers with moderate voice usage can buy Rs 45 plan which offers FTT and a tariff of 1paisa per second as well as 100 MB of data. Vodafone Idea customers also buy 3GB data for Rs 49.
Some of the telecom operator’s cellular rates are higher for low to medium usage voice customers across the country. Vodafone Idea said there are device restrictions with some operators.
