Reliance Info triggers off post-paid price war

Reliance Infocomm has introduced a new post-paid plan called NJ99 with a lower minimum monthly rental of Rs 99.

With a monthly commitment of Rs 149, the plan is expected to trigger yet another downward price revision in the post-paid segment.

The company finds the sub Rs 100 post-paid segment as a lucrative option to drive numbers and growth.

By pricing the tariffs for the plan competitively, Reliance Infocomm aims at a larger share of this entry level post-paid segment, a company spokesperson said on Sunday.

The NJ99 plan has been launched across all 20 circles, the spokesperson said. The commitment covers a monthly rental of Rs 99 and CLIP and plan charges of Rs 25 each.

More than 70 per cent of the net four lakh post-paid connections in the country is in the low-end segment.

Reliance Infocomm is also placed at an advantage because it does not have to bother too much regarding churn, as its handsets are not compatible with other CDMA or GSM

operators, thus discouraging users from moving to another operator.

Reliance's lowest post-paid plan so far was NJ149 which had a monthly commitment of Rs 199. Similarly, it has other plans called the NJ399 and NJ499. The company's array of handsets costing Rs 2,500 and higher will support data enabled features even under the NJ99 plan.

This means that a Reliance subscriber can access the Internet even with a monthly commitment of Rs 149. Reliance launched post-paid plans about two years ago.

"The tariffs are priced lower than most GSM operators in this particular plan. This will prove to be a big factor for subscribers, especially those who have a high usage within a circle," said the spokesperson. Reliance has fixed the intra-circle tariff at Rs 1.50 for calls to Reliance phones and Rs 2.20 for calls to other networks.