{"id":959469,"date":"2025-09-04T11:29:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T05:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/?p=959469"},"modified":"2025-09-04T13:09:49","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T07:39:49","slug":"the-arpu-conundrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/2025\/09\/04\/the-arpu-conundrum\/","title":{"rendered":"The Arpu conundrum"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have both quietly raised tariffs, not through a headline hike but by tinkering their entry-level plans, removing the lowest packs and pushing customers to higher-priced recharges. Jio took the lead last month by discontinuing its Rs 249 plan that offered 1 GB per day for 28 days. The new base plan now starts at Rs 299, with 1.5 GB per day. Airtel followed within days, scrapping its own Rs 249 pack that gave 1 GB per day for 24 days, repositioning its entry-level offerings closer to the Rs 299-319 range. On the surface, this may look like a minor adjustment, but the implications are significant. For subscribers, this means paying 17-20% more per month for basic access. The option of low-cost, short-duration data packs is gone, leaving budget-conscious users with little choice but to spend more. For the operators, it is a clever way to lift average revenue per user (Arpu) without officially announcing a hike. This also prepares the ground for the next full-fledged tariff increase\u2014the last headline hike happened in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel have both quietly raised tariffs, not through a headline hike but by tinkering their entry-level plans, removing the lowest packs and pushing customers to higher-priced recharges. Jio took the lead last month by discontinuing its Rs 249 plan that offered 1 GB per day for 28 days. The new base plan now starts at Rs 299, with 1.5 GB per day. Airtel followed within days, scrapping its own Rs 249 pack that gave 1 GB per day for 24 days, repositioning its entry-level offerings closer to the Rs 299-319 range. On the surface, this may [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,64,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-959469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newspapers","category-telecom-the-financial-express","category-the-financial-express"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=959469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/959469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=959469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=959469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=959469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}