Reliance Jio free plans and offers won't have any restrictions for now. The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) in India has refused to grant a stay order on the "Happy New Year" offer. At the same time, it has asked the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to submit a report about the special Jio offer in a couple of weeks.
Idea Cellular and Bharti Airtel earlier made an appeal against Reliance Jio's promotional offers. The companies accused TRAI of making an error in allowing Reliance to continue the "Welcome" offer. According to the petition by the two of Jio's rival telecom companies, there should be a stay order on the offer that will end on March 31. Idea and Airtel earlier moved to TDSAT for the same.
Amid Reliance Jio free plans and offers, three other major telecom companies in India were under the scanner for their "non-cooperation." TRAI recommended that Idea, Airtel and Vodafone should bear a penalty worth INR 3,050 crore ($465 million) for not giving enough points of interconnection (PoI) to Reliance Jio. The Telecom Commission, however, questioned how TRAI made such a recommendation. According to India's biggest policy maker in telecom, whatever those three companies did was legal, the Financial Express reported.
Reliance Jio free plans and offers will end on March 31, and the company will start charging from April 1. However, the plans offered by the telecom companies are far cheaper than what its rival companies have to offer. TRAI earlier said that it had plans to make itself more "business friendly." "In the consultation paper floated by us on March 14, we are looking at the procedural and not the policy issues," the Economic Times quoted RS Sharma as saying. ET predicts that Reliance Jio, with 100 million-plus customers at the moment, might lose half of its consumers once the free offer ends.
