At Reliance AGM, Mukesh Ambani finally broke the silence on the tariffs for Reliance Jio. The company will not be charging for voice calls at all, and it will charge a tenth of what its competitors are charging for 4G data, Ambani said – it was announced that Jio will charge only 5 paise per MB, or Rs. 50 per GB. What’s more, the greater the usage, the lower the cost will be, and the rates could go down to Rs. 25 per GB.

At the AGM, Ambani also announced that Jio services will become available from Monday, September 5, absolutely free for everyone for a month, as part of the ‘Jio welcome offer’, so everyone can try Jio’s services at absolutely no charge.

“Pay for only one service – either voice or data, not both,” he said. “World over, operators charge only for data, voice and messaging are essentially free. All voice calls for Jio customers will be absolutely free.”

There will also be no roaming charges, across India, to any network, it was announced. “Put an end to all voice call charges for all voice calls that are domestic,” Ambani said. This applies to calls to other networks as well, not just calls within the network.

He also added that data must be affordable for all users. “Current market practice is to charge for data a base rate between Rs. 4,000 and Rs. 10,000 – Jio will have a base rate which is 1/10th of this,” Ambani said. “Our data plans go even further with an effective rate of 5p/MB or Rs. 50/ GB.” Students will get 25 percent extra data on the tariffs, if they show a valid ID when signing up for Jio.

Apart from the data rates, Ambani also announced that the full suite of Jio apps – for streaming movies, music, and live television – will be completely free for all users until December 2017