Indian mobile giant Reliance Jio Infocomm (Jio) has confirmed that as of 10 October it has started to charge its customers for off-net calls, in order to recoup the Interconnect Usage Charge (IUC) imposed by the Telecoms Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). The charge, which has been set at INR0.06 (USD0.00085) per minute, will be discontinued as soon as the watchdog reduces the interconnection rate to zero – a move which is expected to take place on 1 January 2020. Jio has clarified that on-net calls are unaffected, and Jio’s user base can continue to call one another for free.
TeleGeography notes that Jio’s free calls proposition has proven wildly successful since the cellco launched in September 2016, and the company had amassed 331.26 million subscribers as of 30 June 2019.