Reliance Jio has announced that all domestic voice calls from Jio to other networks in India will be free from January 1, 2021. This step has been taken after TRAI decided to remove interconnect usage charges (IUCs) for all domestic voice calls.
“Honouring its commitment to revert off-net domestic voice-call charges to zero, as soon as IUC charges are abolished, Jio will once again make all off-net domestic voice calls free, starting 1st January 2021. On-net domestic voice calls have always been free on the Jio network,” Reliance Jio said in a statement.
Since late 2019, Jio users have been required to pay 6 paise per minute for every voice call made to non-Jio customers. Jio compensated customers by offering free 1GB of data for every 10-rupee paid as IUC charges. Jio to Jio domestic voice calls have remained free.
IUC or Interconnect Usage Charge is the price one telecom company pay to another when its customer makes outgoing calls to the customer of other telecom company. This price was set to 6 paise/minute.
IUC has to be paid by the operator from which the call was initiated. IUC first made headlines when Airtel alleged that Reliance Jio has reduced ring duration from 35-40 seconds to 25 seconds to avoid IUC. That means Jia subscribers were unknowingly giving more missed calls and were getting callbacks. So, Jio was earning IUC.
