The cat has been set among the pigeons. India's biggest industrial house has launched its 4G LTE network and is offering unlimited free voice calls forever to anyone who signs up for its services. It is also claiming to offer the cheapest 4G LTE data rates in the world.

After numerous delays and months of testing, India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, today announced the commercial availability of Reliance Jio's mobile services. The conglomerate's Jio services, which users can avail starting Sept. 5, is offering a nation-wide LTE network coverage, coupled with free voice plans and best data tariff Indian consumers have ever seen.

Jio's network is being touted as the largest 4G LTE deployment anywhere in the world, Ambani said, adding that the network is also "future proof" with baked in support for upcoming 5G and 6G network technologies. Jio's 4G coverage is available in 18,000 cities in the country, and over 200,000 remote areas. The company aims to extend the coverage to 90 percent of India's population by next year.

“India and Indians cannot afford to be left behind,” Ambani said. "The era of paying for voice calls is ending,” he added.

"The era of paying for voice calls is ending,” Ambani said.

The world's second most populous nation, India, already has some of the cheapest voice calling plans but data remains expensive for most subscribers. With poor wired internet infrastructure, a smartphone is mostly where many Indians experience the internet for the first time. Jio is offering the country’s 1.3 billion people free voice calls and data tariffs starting at 1GB of data at Rs 50 (75 cents).

This move to make voice calls free would be a big blow for three of India's biggest carriers — Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, which still make most of their revenues from voice calls. Voice calls on Airtel, for instance, still account for nearly two-thirds of its mobile revenues. While Airtel projects its share of data revenues will increase, Jio's offer to give free voice calls will nevertheless be a big blow. While Ambani was announcing Jio's plans in Mumbai today, Airtel's stock was down by as much as 9%. Airtel has more than 200 million subscribers in India and is the country's largest carrier.

Image: airtel

Jio has also lowered the barrier point one faces in availing 4G services. Its smartphone brand Lyf is offering LTE capable phones starting at as low as Rs 2,999 ($45), and a portable Wi-Fi router starting at Rs 1,999 (30). As an introductory offer, Reliance is offering all new Jio customers unlimited free data and access to a range of its content services including on-demand movie and music streaming, and live TV channels till Dec. 31, 2016.

The announcement comes roughly nine months after Reliance Jio began testing its services with its employees and soon afterwards with hundreds of thousands of people in the country. The commercial launch of Reliance Jio is expected to cause a major stir in the country’s telecom market. During the test period, Jio offered users unlimited 4G LTE data, voice calls, and text messages. The overwhelming response from people resulted in Airtel and Vodafone, each with over 150 million subscribers, revise data tariffs on their networks.



Though over the years several new and global players have showed interest in getting a slice of India’s telecom market, the incumbents in the country have never feared the competition as much. Reliance Industries in the largest industrial house in the country, and has bet $22 billion on its telecom services. This comes at a time when rival telecom companies are growing financially weaker.

Reliance Industries has bet $22 billion on its telecom services.

“While all the existing players were hoping to improve revenue-wise from increased adoption and usage of data services, RJio comes into the picture with latest of technology which is a real converged service platform based on IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) technology allowing them to definitely operate at a lower OPEX as you are not managing multiple platforms for each of the service for consumers,” Faisal Kawoosa, Senior Analyst with CyberMedia Research India told Mashable India.



Reliance Jio is also betting big on content. It is offering users a range of services including messaging, mobile wallet, security suite, magazine newsstand, music streaming, on-demand movies and TV shows, cloud storage, live TV access, and a news app. The company says that it plans to offer these services under a subscription of Rs 15,000 ($225). But as another introductory offer, Jio users will get these services for free until the end of next year.

Voice calls in India:

1997: Rs 32/min

2016: Free — Mahendra Palsule (@ScepticGeek) September 1, 2016

Reliance's offering today is a big win for consumers, who have now more choices when it comes to purchasing voice and data services. As other rivals react to Jio's offering, things will only get better for end users.