Jio and Airtel Set to Discontinue Unlimited 5G Plans, Introduce Premium Pricing

Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel are most probably going to withdraw their unlimited 5G data plans. The premium customers of their services will not be able to get unlimited free 5G from now on. They are going to be charged at least 5-10% more for 5G services compared to 4G. This is most probably going to happen in the second half of 2024. According to analysts, they did it to drive monetization and boost revenue growth.

Jio, Airtel going to charge up to 10% more for 5G!

Jio and Airtel have been offering unlimited 5G services that are also free of any cost for over a year! This offer is available with 4G rates. These unlimited data offerings lure existing users to upgrade to the next-gen wireless broadband service. Analysts expected that this is going to change with both Jio and Airtel. They always planned to roll out their 5G services nationwide and prioritize monetization once the adoption levels increased up to a level.

“With rising focus on monetization and 5G coverage near completion, we believe the telcos (read: Jio and Airtel) may stop offering unlimited 5G data to their higher-ARPU data customers and announce 5G-specific plans towards 2HCY24,” research has said.

The global brokerage has also said that the absolute price points for Airtel and Jio’s 5G plans may be going to be 5-10% higher than their 4G plan. The operators may also bundle 30-40% additional data in such plans. This will help them to spur more adoption, which will eventually drive market share gains at the expense of cash-strapped Vodafone Idea or Vi. But they are yet to launch 5G services.