RJio to offer world's 'lowest' data tariffs starting at Rs 19

Reliance Jio customers will get free voice calling (including STD) and roaming services, bundled with data access for Rs 19 onwards, making the offering one of the "lowest" globally.

The company has introduced 10 tariff plans from one-day plan at Rs 19 for occasional users going all the way up to Rs 4,999 a month for heavy data users.

The pricing, which analysts are terming as a "knockout punch" are estimated to be as low as one-tenth of the prevailing data rates depending on the customer's data usage.

These tariff plans would come into effect after December 31, 2016. Till then, all customers would get free access to unlimited voice calls (local and STD), SMSes and data.

Jio users would also not face any blackout days like Diwali and New Year, when operators tend to charge double.

According to Bernstein Research, both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone have launched similar plans offering unlimited voice calling.

"However, Bharti's unlimited voice plan is currently positioned at a higher price point and offer comparably less data... Vodafone also offers few unlimited voice calling plans but SMS is usually capped, the data cap is smaller and there are no free apps available," it said.

The report said Bharti Airtel's unlimited voice plans are available from Rs 949 to Rs 2,999 and it expects that the company would "revise the tariffs over the coming weeks".

While analysts believe Reliance Jio's entry will bring in a new round of price war, rival Bharti Airtel welcomed Jio's entry in the Indian market.

"As a responsible operator, we will fulfill all our regulatory obligations as we have always done," it added.

Vodafone spokesperson said the company has always offered value to customers backed by nationwide presence and a strong network and will continue to do so for hundreds of millions customers across the country.

Reliance Jio is ushering in "data-giri" to cash in on the booming demand for data services boom in the country. Even though 70 per cent of the Indian telecom industry's revenues are still derived from voice services, data revenues are growing at a strong pace for all operators.

Data demand is being driven by factors like high consumption of videos, online transactions, games and use of popular instant messengers like WhatsApp and Hike.

Reliance is also offering a Jio apps bouquet worth Rs 15,000, will be available complimentary for all active Jio customers up to December 31, 2017.

Under the Rs 19 prepaid plan, users will get 100 MB data and 100 SMSes for a day, apart from unlimited free voice calling.

The 149 plan, available for both prepaid and postpaid users, will offer 300MB data and 100 SMSes with a validity of about a month. .

Under the Rs 4,999 plan, users will get 75GB of 4G data as well as unlimited 4G access at night for a period of 28 days or one month for prepaid and postpaid users, respectively.

Other plans would be available for Rs 129 (prepaid only), Rs 299 (prepaid only), Rs 499, Rs 999, Rs 1,499, Rs 2,499, and Rs 3,999.

Under these plans (except Rs 149 plan), subscribers will also have wifi access (with varied amounts of usage) from JioNet Hotspots.

Speaking at the Reliance Industries' 42th Annual General Meeting, Chairman Mukesh Ambani said data must be "affordable" and that Reliance Jio's effective rates will be Rs 50 per GB.

"If you use more data, it will go down to Rs 25 per GB," he added.

Compared globally, Reliance Jio's tariffs are among the lowest. According to Ambani's presentation, data rates per GB are around USD 30 in Japan, USD 18 in Korea, USD 15 in China, USD 7.5 in Spain and USD 6 in South Africa.

In India, it is currently at about USD 3.5 which Jio now proposes to bring down further to less than USD 1 (about Rs 67).

Ambani, India's richest man, however stopped short of calling January 1 as the commercial launch of Jio that will offer only fourth-generation or 4G services in the world's second-largest smartphone market.

Invest in India, get permanent residency for 10 years: Govt

NEW DELHI: In a major policy change aimed at making India a more attractive investment destination for overseas investors, the Centre on Wednesday decided to grant permanent residency status for 10 years to foreign investors.

In doing so, India joins countries such as the US, Canada and the UK which grant this status in return for investment. The US EB-5 visa is almost fully subscribed, largely by Indian and Chinese millionaires.
The Union Cabinet decided to grant the residency status to foreigners if they invest Rs 10 crore over 18 months or Rs 25 crore over three years. The status will allow multiple entry to visitors for 10 years, which can be extended for another 10 years if the visitor does not receive adverse notice. No registration requirements would be mandated.

During this period, investors would be allowed to buy one residential property and their spouses and children would also be allowed to work or study in India. The scheme would, however, not be available for Pakistani and Chinese citizens.

RBI cautions banks over retail lending.

NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank of India has cautioned state-run lenders on overexposure to the retail sector. "It is not necessary that everything is hunky dory in retail," S Vishwanathan, a deputy governor with the central bank, said on Tuesday. 

There is a need to ensure that stressed asset buildup is contained so that banks get back to generate adequate internal accruals, he said at an Assocham event here. Vishwanathan said credit growth is more in private sector banks as opposed to the public sector banks and "then you have problem of the state run lenders also going for retail (loans)". 

"We believe that information asymmetry is the main bottleneck in some credit appraisal and strong credit monitoring," he said, and called for a proper understanding of risk and mitigation of the risk so that the banks are lending to the right parties. Noting that businesses can get into financial difficulties, Vishwanathan said genuine business needs should be supported and malfeasance should be property dealt with. 

"We have therefore put in place a detailed system for identifying wilful defaulters and non-cooperative borrowers with attendant consequences to the borrowers who are so declared. We also believe that frauds should be sternly dealt and have created a fraud registry," he said.

Mukesh Ambani may disclose Jio's future plans at Reliance Industries' AGM on September 1

KOLKATA | MUMBAI: Reliance IndustriesBSE -0.73 % Chairman Mukesh Ambani is likely to disclose future plans for Reliance Jio Infocomm at the company's annual general meeting (AGM) on Thursday, which could include details about its much-awaited tariff plans. 

A person familiar with the matter told ET that the company could reveal some of its tariff packages aimed at specific categories of users. These will be closely tracked by the industry which is anticipating a bruising rate war.

"This AGM should be a big one for Jio," the person said. Jio is also expected to shortly file its tariff plans with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and these will be effective once the three-month free voice and data trial offer lapses. 

The government has been nudging Jio to file its tariff plans which will mark a significant step towards the launch of commercial 4G operations of the telecom unit of Reliance Industries. Jio has blamed incumbent operators for not giving it adequate points of interconnection. 

This has led to 65 per cent of the calls from Jio's network dropping, forcing it to delay its commercial rollout, the company claims.

India's top telcos in turn have accused Jio of running commercial operations in the guise of trials and violating rules, and said they wouldn't give more PoIs till Jio launches operations commercially. 

Another person aware of company plans said Reliance wants to make Lyf among the top three smartphone brands in India. It plans to come up with special tariff plans for Lyf customers to make these handsets more attractive. 

"While Reliance Jio has now opened up the preview offer to almost all the leading smartphone brands which were earlier exclusive to Lyf customers, there will be some special tariff plan for Lyf customers to ensure the handset sales continue and drive volume sales," he said. Jio didn't respond to emailed requests for comment at press time. 

There has been considerable speculation in the telecom industry about whether the company will announce a date for the launch of its commercial operations at the AGM. One of the persons quoted earlier said the proposed launch date was a closely guarded secret, known only to Ambani and a handful of key executives. 

Focus on affordability 
Jio seems to be gearing up for starting full-fledged services which could be a game changer through its pricing and offerings. It has publicly announced that it has over over 1.5 million test users on its network, though unofficial estimates peg this number at a much higher level, with some saying this could be as high as 4-5 million subscribers. The company has said that the trial programme will gradually be upgraded into commercial operations in the coming months. 

The company has said that it will offer services at "substantially lower" rates than rivals. "Affordability is a key to success of the digital revolution. Jio will make its services accessible and affordable to all consumers," Reliance Industries (RIL), the parent of Jio, said in its annual report for 2015-16. 

In anticipation of rock bottom tariffs, Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular have already slashed effective data tariffs by 67 per cent for prepaid customers and market leader Bharti Airtel has started offering free and unlimited voice with some postpaid data packs. 

Reliance Infocomm has tied up with around 20 smartphone brands including Samsung, Micromax and LG to bundle Jio SIM cards with them with free voice and data for three months. It has also recently dropped prices of its entry-to-mid segment Lyf handsets by 25-30 per cent which has boosted sales coupled with the Jio preview offer. 

The company is targeting primarily the Rs 3,000-10,000 segment which still contributes around 75 per cent of smartphone sales in the country by volume and around 45 per cent by value. 

Rcom targets new users via aggressive plan.

NEW DELHI: Reliance Communications aims to poach customers from top telcos with its latest Re 1 plan valid for 30 days under which users can chose to make app-to-app calls or browse the internet, but unlike competitors Bharti AirtelBSE -0.08 %, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular, won't be cutting data tariffs. 

"We have no intention of dropping data prices. We will stay focused on delivering quality," said Gurdeep Singh, chief executive officer, consumer business, Reliance Communications.

"We will poach customers and better network will attract customers... It is our time to reverse market share and we're not looking at anything less than leadership in 4G." 

The statement comes in the backdrop of data tariff cuts by the top three telcos over the past month or so in the wake of newcomer Reliance Jio Infocomm's three-month unlimited voice and data trial offer, completely free of charge. 

Idea Cellular started giving about 45 per cent more data to existing customers. The move was followed by Airtel and Vodafone, which started offering about 67% more 4G and 3G data to its customers. 

On Monday, Bharti Airtel announced a new plan for prepaid customers who can use 1 GB of 3G or 4G data for 28 days by paying Rs 1,498 upfront. Once exhausted, users can renew the data pack by paying just Rs 51 as many times as required for up to a year. The plan is aimed at improving customer stickiness. 

While RCom is focusing on taking more customers from rivals, it is evaluating options for buying spectrum in the upcoming auction, which may include the efficient yet pricier 700 MHz band. 

"We are pan-India on 850 MHz but we're still evaluating our options," Singh said when asked about bidding for spectrum in this band. He added that sub-1 GHz spectrum is a must for high quality data networks and that pricing of the band would depend on the intensity of the bidding. 

From big oil to big data: Inside Mukesh Ambani's $20-billion startup called Jio

MUMBAI: At the vast open-plan headquarters of Indian telecoms startup Jio, billionaire oil tycoon Mukesh Ambani stands in short sleeves beneath a digital tracker that logs every new subscriber to his service. 

The 59-year-old is India's richest man, and his Reliance Industries oil & gas group is the country's most profitable. 

Now, though, he's betting at least $20 billion on building, from scratch, a national digital empire stretching from phones and hardware to home entertainment and custom-made apps. 

The ambitious Jio project could make Reliance the most comprehensive provider of telecom and internet services across India - and give it unprecedented access to the country's untapped 'big data': how millions eat, shop and have fun. 

"For Reliance... data is the new oil, and intelligent data is the new petrol," Ambani said in March, explaining his drive to move closer to India's consumers. 

Reliance has said little publicly about Jio, and even less about the potential for wide-scale data mining in a country where consumers have not, to date, made a big deal about online privacy. But top executives are clear on the opportunity. 

"It's called Deep Packet Inspection, and what you can do with the analytics of that is mind-boggling," said a senior Reliance executive, referring to a practice that digs into 'packets' of data created by computers for efficiency, mining them for information. 

Jio is unlikely to contribute significantly to Reliance profits anytime soon, but is hugely significant for its future. Reliance has dabbled previously in consumer sectors, yet Jio is seen as an opportunity for Ambani to set a new course for a company still dominated by his late father, its founder. 

Jio is also a potentially landmark opportunity for India, where smartphone usage has ballooned and services like mobile payments and online entertainment have become commonplace. 

The prospect of Jio, which has not yet been commercially launched, has raised hopes of cheaper, more reliable data for Indian users. It has already drawn queues at some stores by offering free connections with unlimited data for a three-month period, allowing it to test its network. 

That has stirred rivals. India's largest wireless provider Bharti Airtel this week cut its 3G/4G data tariffs on prepaid connections by more than 40 percent, after halving them a month ago. 

ALL ABOUT AMBITION 

But Jio - named from a Hindi exhortation to 'live on' - is behind schedule and over budget, say several former employees, who, like current staff interviewed by Reuters, did not want to be named. It was initially expected to launch by end-2014, with total capital expenditure within $15 billion, they said. 

Reliance has never provided a specific date or figure, and declined to respond to specific queries for this article. 
According to filings at the Commerce Ministry, Jio has more than 325 billion rupees ($4.9 billion) of long-term debt, and other liabilities topping 580 billion rupees, as of March. In addition, Reliance has spent over 290 billion rupees on Jio and is expected to invest more - all adding up to more than what it has been spending on its core refining and petrochemicals business. 

Reliance says its oil business is pumping out cash, and any investment in Jio has to be ambitious. 
Two-thirds of India's 1.3 billion population are not online, and Jio hopes to capture 100 million users - nearly half of India's current smartphone users - within a year of launch. 

Ambani, who employees say taught himself to code, ran Reliance's nascent telecoms operations in the early 2000s, before a feud with his younger brother Anil triggered a split and a bitter non-compete deal. Mukesh took the family's energy business and Anil the communications assets, setting up Reliance Com .. 

RELIANCE CITY 
At Jio's biggest campus, a sprawling cluster of glass buildings, manicured lawns and giant Jio logos outside Mumbai, the scale of Ambani's vision is evident. Reuters was offered a rare opportunity to visit the site earlier this year. 

The campus has 15,000 employees working for Jio alone, plus hundreds of consultants and service providers working alongside the group. There are large guest houses and hotels. 

In a single hall, Reliance has put on show everything from its e-payment mechanism and music-streaming app to its messaging app, sleek Jio smartphones - sold at a fraction of the cost of an iPhone - connected cars, and even a replica home. 

"As they go out, they will have a very aggressive posture," said Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India. 

On campus, Ambani, who flies in by helicopter once a week, was flanked at his desk by his eldest son, Akash, who is Jio's head of strategy, and by Manoj Modi, a long-serving adviser, and a reminder of the influence of trusted employees, most from the oil business. 

One company insider said the Jio logo is actually a mirror image of the word 'oil,' reflecting in a way Reliance's journey from oil drilling to data mining. 

($1 = 67.0605 Indian rupees)

Government approves Rs 7,457 crore highway projects in 11 states.

NEW DELHI: Government today approved 16 highway projects in 11 states to be executed at a cost of Rs 7,457 crore. 

"The standing finance committee (SFC) today cleared 16 projects worth Rs 7,456.88 crore for 622 km," Road Transport and Highways Secretary Sanjay Mitra told reporters. 

Of these, two projects will be built on hybrid annuity mode, 13 on engineering, procurement and construction mode and remaining one on build, operate and transfer (BOT) mode. 

The projects are in Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Sikkim. 

Mitra said two of the projects pertained to Char Dham Yatra connectivity in Uttarakhand on EPC mode. 

These include Rs 248 crore and Rs 200 crore projects for geometric improvement and widening of stretches on NH 58. 

The two projects to be built on hybrid annuity mode (HBA) include Rs 905 crore and Rs 1,338 crore projects in Maharashtra for upgradation of NH 66 stretches under National Highways Development Project (NHDP) phase IV. 

The BOT project pertained to four laning of Haryana/Punjab border Jind section of NH 71 design, build, finance, operate and transfer mode. 

The projects sanctioned today include five projects under SARDP-NE for Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Sikkim. 
Mitra said projects would be bid out shortly while work on them would start after acquisition of 90 per cent land.