Reliance Jio offers free talktime to compensate users for interconnect usage charges: Report

Reliance Jio is offering 30 minutes of free talktime to its users after the telco announced it will charge users 6 paise per minute to outgoing calls.

Reliance Jio has a new offer for IUC charges. (REUTERS)

Reliance Jio is reportedly offering 30 minutes free talktime to compensate its users for the Interconnect Usage Charges (IUC). Jio announced it will start charging users 6 paise per minute for outgoing calls to other telecom operators.

Jio's new limited time offer comes with 30 minutes of free talktime to users on their first recharge, according to a report by ET. The report also states that users are being informed of this offer through SMSs. The 30 minute free talktime will be valid for users for the first seven days since the recharge. This is in addition to the newly introduced top-up vouchers with free minutes and data.

On the day Jio announced it would start IUC charges, it also rolled out three new top-up vouchers. Starting at ₹10, this IUC top-up voucher offers 124 minutes of calls to non-Jio numbers and 1GB of data. The ₹20 IUC top-up voucher comes with 249 minutes and 2GB data. The ₹50 voucher offers 656 minutes of talktime and 5GB of data.

Lastly, the ₹100 top-up comes with 1,362 minutes and 10GB of data. Jio postpaid users will also be compensated with free data against the minutes used to make outgoing calls to rival telcos. Jio's decision to start imposing IUC charges comes shortly after TRAI floated a new consultation paper to review its 2017 decision.

TRAI had decided to bring down IUC charges from 6 paise to 0 from January 1, 2020. The telecom authority will now review with consideration to extend the deadline further. Jio says it has so far paid ₹13,500 crore for IUC charges to rival telcos.