Jio vs Airtel: Battle for Cheapest 4G Data 📱

Jio revised its plans earlier this month to offer more data with its popular 1GB data per day recharge packs, and launched new plans with 1.5GB daily data allocation as part of the Happy New Year 2018 offer. However, Jio plans to rejig its plans once again as part of a Republic Day 2018 Offer that it will announce in the next couple of days, Gadgets 360 has learned. Under the new offer, Jio users will get up to 50 percent more data on plans priced Rs. 149 or above. The changes will come into effect at 12am on January 26, 2018.

The company’s 1GB data per day plans are priced at Rs. 149, Rs. 349, Rs. 399 and Rs. 449, with validities of 28 days, 70 days, 84 days and 91 days, respectively. However, with the Jio Republic Day Offer 2018, customers will get 50 percent more data as the daily high-speed data cap will be raised to 1.5GB per day. This means the 1GB data per day plans are effectively phased out, at least till the Republic Day offer continues.

Similarly, the 1.5GB data per day plans will now offer 2GB of high-speed data a day. So customers will now get more data with the Rs. 198, Rs. 398, Rs. 448 and Rs. 498 plans. This pretty much leaves the Rs. 299 plan redundant as subscribers will be able to get the same benefits (2GB per day for 28 days) at Rs. 198.

Airtel has revised its Rs 199, Rs 448 and Rs 509 prepaid recharge plans to offer 1.4GB daily data, compared to 1GB per day previously. Apart from increase in data offering, all other benefits remain the same. Airtel’s prepaid packs also come bundled with unlimited local and STD calls, roaming incoming and outgoing calls as well as 100 local/national SMS per day. The Rs 199 plan has a validity of 28 days, while Rs 448 and Rs 509 plans come with 82 days and 90 days validity respectively.
This means, Airtel users will now get a total of 39.2GB data with Rs 199 pack, instead of 28GB earlier. Airtel’s Rs 448 plan gives users a total of 114.8GB data for 82 days, compared to 82GB earlier. Coming to Airtel’s Rs 509 plan, users get 126GB data in all, compared to 90GB previously.
With its new offers, Airtel hopes to take on Reliance Jio, which recently revised its prepaid plans to offer more data and validity. In comparison, Jio’s Rs 198 prepaid pack gives users a total of 42GB of data at 1.5GB, for 28 days. Reliance Jio’s Rs 448 plan offers 1.5GB daily data for 84 days, while the company’s Rs 509 plan comes with a validity of 28 days, and gives users 84GB data at 3GB per day.
Notably, Airtel revised its Rs 149 plan as well, last week, to offer unlimited call benefits. The plan, which previously offered unlimited Airtel to Airtel voice calls, will now give users unlimited local, STD, and roaming calls to any network. It also comes bundled with 1GB 3G/4G data and 100 SMSes per day. Validity is 28 days. However, this plan is limited to the Andhra and Telangana circles for now.