Jio launches campaign to replace India's 250M 2G phones

Reliance Jio is one of the major telecoms in India, and the company is steadily expanding its 5G network. However, it notes there are over 250 million people “trapped in the 2G era”, according to a press release, and the carrier has a plan to introduce them to the internet.

Jio Bharat is a program that will offer INR999 (about $12) phones with 4G connectivity to users, alongside extremely affordable plans, compared with other carriers. The beta trial will begin this Friday, July 7, and will include 1 million phones sold across 6,500 regions of India.

Currently, operators are increasing the cost of basic voice services twice - from INR99 ($1.20) to INR199 ($2.40) per month. Jio Bharat will tackle that with an unlimited voice plan and 500 MB per day for INR123 ($1.49), which is 30% cheaper and 7 times more data than competitors, the carrier claims. The plan will be billed every 28 days, meaning users will get 14 GB of data for their feature phones. The annual plan will be INR1,234 ($15), which is a further 25% savings.

The handsets will be branded under the Jio Bharat platform - JioBharat V2 and JioBharat K1 Karbonn. Both will feature 1.77" screens of QQVGA resolution (160x120 pixels) and pack 1,000 mAh batteries. The devices will also support storage expansion up to 128GB via microSD card and sport VGA cameras on the rear.

The JioBharat V2 and JioBharat K1 Karbonn will also support UPI payments with JioPay and come with plenty of entertainment options - Jio Cinema with movies, videos, and sports highlights; JioSaavn with over 80 million songs in multiple languages; and an FM radio.

The JioBharat V2 will be offered in Ash Blue and Solo Black colors, but the JioBharat K1 Karbonn will come in a single grey-red color.