Airtel Rs 399 plan beats Reliance Jio hands down, becomes cheaper without IUC

In good news for non-Jio customers, both Vodafone and Bharti Airtel removed the FUP cap on outgoing calls limit outside their network with effect from December 6, the day Jio rolled out revised prepaid plans costing up to 40 per cent higher than previous offerings.

Airtel has marginally benefitted from its decision to remove interconnect usage charge (IUC) that customers have to pay while making outgoing off-net calls from one network to another. As a result, Airtel Rs 399 plan has a clear advantage over Reliance Jio Rs 399 plan.

READ | Jio justifies charging users for off-net calls after Airtel, Vodafone make calls truly free

With the removal of the limit, Airtel's new Rs 399 plans with 56 days validity became cheaper than that of Reliance Jio plan at the same price. Meanwhile, Vodafone Idea has also added Rs 219 plan with the same offering as announced by Bharti Airtel.

Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea earlier capped outgoing calls to other networks at 1,000 minutes in plan with 28-days validity, 3,000 minutes in 84-day validity and 12,000 in 365 days validity plan. Beyond this limit, customers were required to pay 6 paise per minute for outgoing calls made to other networks.

Airtel Rs 399 vs Jio Rs 399

READ | Airtel lifts FUP cap on voice calls, offers ‘truly’ unlimited calling with new plans

Last week, Airtel announced three new plans to compete with the likes of Reliance Jio. One of the plans -- Airtel Rs 399 -- costs exactly the same as Jio (Rs 399) and offers more or less the same benefits. Since both plans offer 1.5GB daily data for 56 days, users avail a total of 84GB of data throughout the plan's validity, with the cost per 1GB data of Rs 4.75.

Both Airtel Rs 399 and Jio Rs 399 plans offer daily 100 SMS. While Airtel offers complimentary access to free Hello Tunes, Wynk Music and Xstream Premium, Jio subscribers avail JioPrime membership that includes JioSecurity, JioSaavn, JioCinema, among others.

The biggest differentiator, Airtel Rs 399 is free from FUP capping on off-net calls whereas Jio Rs 399 plan provides users with Jio to Non-Jio FUP of 2,000 minutes. These things give Airtel Rs 399 an edge over Jio Rs 399 plan.