Reliance Jio is forcing other telecom operators to think over bundled data and voice call plans

Soon, you won’t be paying separately for data and voice calls, thanks to Reliance Jio, which has led other telecom operators to offer bundled plans to its consumers.

It is likely that Airtel, Vodafone and Idea may come up with bundled plans or fix a rate for data and voice calls, in a bid to counter Reliance Jio.

Bharti Airtel's former Chief Executive Sanjay Kapoor told ET, “Jio realises that Airtel, Vodafone and Idea are hugely dependent on voice revenues and is likely to try every trick in the book to capture the imagination of their lower-end voice customers through its unlimited voice offers with bundled data.”

Reliance Jio has announced free voice calls for life and in this backdrop, the top three telecom operators will have to make their tariff plans lucrative.

It is noteworthy the voice services make up nearly 80% of the revenue for incumbent carriers.

Meanwhile, Airtel is going to wait for Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio to announce its tariff plans and will then take a call on changing its pricing.

Kapoor told ET it's just a matter of time before decoupled voice and data tariff plans totally disappear, paving the way for bundled plans since "voice-only customers are a dying phenomenon, much like the feature phone.”

Nitin Soni, director at ratings firm Fitch, told ET it would be virtually impossible for any telco to offer unlimited data under a bucket plan on a regular basis since spectrum is expensive in India and the associated network capital requirements would also be huge for handling any potential upsurge in data consumption when it is offered free.