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Reliance Jio Doesn’t Offer Free Voice Calls Anymore: New Charges, Vouchers, and More

Reliance Jio customers will now have to pay for voice calls made to other mobile networks. Starting from today, Jio will charge 6 paise per minute for voice calls to non-Jio networks. Customers will have to recharge with top-up vouchers for this. The company says that it will compensate customers by giving free data of the equal value of the top-up voucher.

To be noted, incoming calls, Jio to Jio calls, landline calls and app-based calls such as WhatsApp, will remain free. Jio customers who want to make a call to other networks like Vodafone Idea or Airtel will have to buy additional top-up vouchers starting from Rs 10.

Jio’s Voice Call Charges

From today, voice calls by Jio users made to another mobile operator like Airtel, Vodafone-Idea, etc will be charged at 6 paise per minute. Also, Jio to Jio, incoming, and calls made to a landline number and using WhatsApp, Skype, etc, will be free.

Post-paid customers will also be billed at 6 paise per minute for all outgoing calls made to another network. All customers will be compensated with free data entitlement.

IUC Top-up Vouchers

Jio customers will have to purchase IUC top-up vouchers to make calls to other networks. Also, Jio will give 1 GB free data for every Rs. 10 spent on vouchers. The talk-time amount will get deducted at 6 paise per minute when you make a call to other operators.

IUC Top-Up Voucher IUC Minutes Free Data Entitlement (GB)
Rs. 10 124 1
Rs. 20 249 2
Rs. 50 656 5
Rs. 100 1362 10

When it will end?

Jio has assured that the IUC charges will not be applicable for a very long time. These are only applicable until the TRAI announces a zero IUC policy. At present, IUC is 6 paise per minute. According to the last ruling by TRAI, IUC will be zero only from January 1, 2020. This means Jio users will have to pay IUC only till the end of this year.

What is IUC?

IUC (Interconnect Usage Charge) is a charge which is paid to the telecom operator on whose network a call is made. This has been a bone of contention among network operators and TRAI. Two years ago, TRAI brought it down from 14 paise per minute to 6 paise per minute and also decided to scrap it from January 2020.

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Satyendra Pal Singh

Satyendra explores the latest happenings in the tech world and writes stories about those. He likes to play around with the latest gadgets and shares his views through articles. In his free time, you can find him watching movies/TV shows and/or reading books.