Free 4G Data Prepaid Tariff Plan Comparison of Jio, Airtel & Vodafone

The tariff wars had started when Jio announced their tariff plans at the Annual General Meeting earlier this month. One the years it has been touted that Reliance Jio would disrupt the telecom industry for good. And that is what is happening!

It is being called out as a Jio Effect. With companies changing their strategies to fight against losing their customers to number portability as Jio now allows users to port their existing number to Jio. Airtel, Vodafone, and IDEA Cellular have already modified their data tariffs to reflect extra data offering up to 67% on their existing plans.

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While that was not enough for the company as some of them, have launched special tariffs claiming to offer Free Unlimited Data under the offer. All this seems to be happening in the wake of Jio Welcome Offer, where Jio customers are getting unlimited voice and data benefits until 31st December 2016.

To highlight what is offered by the current Telecom players in the name of Free Data Offer. Today, we are comparing the Free Data Offer from Airtel & Vodafone with Jio Welcome Offer.

Starting with the Price of Pack. Many would claim to offer Free Data under their schemes, but the most important part is that they are not free at all. Well, not in the case of Airtel & Vodafone, as they are respectively charging Rs 1495 and Rs 255. While it is important to note that validity of the Offer is 90 days for Airtel whereas it’s just 28 days for Vodafone users.

Compared to the Jio, they are not charging any amount for the Jio Welcome Offer, so you can avail a SIM and enjoy benefits at free of cost. Coming to the Voice calls, as Jio has announced at their Annual General Meeting, they would be offering unlimited Voice calls for free. This is possible as they have an all-IP network, which means data and voice use the same infrastructure to make calls, unlike other incumbent players. Moreover, since Airtel & Vodafone has named their Offers, Free Data Offer, it shouldn’t be confusion among users that there won’t be any free voice calls

With Airtel & Vodafone having Public Wi-Fi hotspots across various selected location, it would have been nice to see them offer some data cap on using the public hotspots. But that is not the case here. On top of that, don’t expect to send free SMS and get premium subscriptions to any application service provided by them. On the other hand, Jio offers free access to their 13 Premium apps, while only Vodafone is the one from current players to offer free access to three of the premium apps.

Talking about the data cap, Jio offers 4G high-speed data limit of 4GB per day after that you can enjoy unlimited data but at a lower speed of 128 Kbps. While comparing it with Airtel’s Free Data Offer, you will get 15GB of data if on the non-4G handset, while 4G handset users on Airtel will get 30GB of data cap. Whereas Vodafone offers 1GB of LTE data and 9GB of Night LTE data in their special monthly pack. Do make a note that Night data can only be used on new 4G handsets. They shouldn’t have been used on Vodafone’s 4G network for the last six months.

There are key concerns that you need to know about before jumping to the conclusion of the Airtel and Vodafone’s Free Data Offers. The concern raised is that unlike Jio’s services the Airtel and Vodafone aren’t offering the benefits for free, as they are charging quite an amount. Though it might prove to be a decent plan for users on the respective networks, it is not recommended to port to them basis on these plans.

Don’t get fooled by FREE and UNLIMITED data promotion; users should know about the conditions and actual pricing models and what all is offered in the pack they are recharging. After FUP is reached, you will have to browse at 64 Kbps. While on Vodafone you aren’t getting unlimited data offering, it would be chargeable after your data cap is finished. To be honest, the Rs 255 plan is a total bust as 9GB data is at Night. For similar pricing, you anyway get around 1GB of data.

In conclusion, it can be stated that in the wake of Jio Welcome Offer, Airtel and Vodafone is trying to lure customers with these data packs. On the bright side, the existing customers can also enjoy these data packs from their respective Telecom providers.

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