Reliance partners with WhatsApp to bring special data plans

Reliance Communications has announced its exclusive partnership with WhatsApp in India. Through this partnership, Reliance Communications has launched the first ever What’sApp prepaid plan in India. ‘WhatsApp Plan’ is available for all Reliance GSM subscribers, and ‘My College Plan’ for students across the country. Reliance GSM customers can now enjoy unlimited use of WhatsApp and Facebook across the country at a nominal fee of Rs 16 per month only, without paying any extra data consumption charges.

‘WhatsApp Plan’ offers unlimited access of WhatsApp to all prepaid Reliance GSM customers in the country for just Rs 16 per month without paying any extra data consumption charges. Facebook is bundled complimentary in this pack for a limited period and hence a customer use of WhatsApp and Facebook is absolutely free on the Reliance network. ‘WhatsApp Plan’ is available with a validity period of 30 days from the date of recharge and the plan is auto-renewed every 30 days unless unsubscribed.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

Reliance partners with WhatsApp

‘My College Plan’ by Reliance Communications offers unlimited social media access of WhatsApp to all college students on the prepaid Reliance GSM network across the country for just Rs 16 per month. This unique plan allows students to call and SMS within their specified group at just 5 paisa and also permits a student to broadcast a juicy titbit in the campus through a SMS to the entire college group for just Rs 3 by texting the message to 51112. ‘My College Plan’ is available with a validity period of 30 Days from the date of recharge and the plan is auto-renewed every 30 days unless unsubscribed. This plan is available with SMS-based recharge and applicable to most of the colleges across the country and students can get their college IDs from the official website of Reliance Communications.

Commenting on the tie-up with WhatsApp and announcing the launch of ‘WhatsApp Plan’ and ‘My College Plan’ Sanjay Behl, Group Head – Brand & Marketing, Reliance Communications Limited said, “We are thrilled to offer the first of its kind offering of sharing unlimited text, music, pictures and videos to our customers through our exclusive partnership with WhatsApp in India. We are confident that ‘WhatsApp Plan’ and ‘My College Plan’ with unlimited usage of WhatsApp is set to provide a compelling new experience with incredible affordability to Smartphone users across the country on our superior network along with free Facebook surfing as an introductory offer for a limited period. We are hoping this offer to trigger a significant shift of youth customers using Smartphones to our superior network.” 

Commenting on this association with Reliance Communications in India WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton said, “With the rapid growth of Smartphones in India, we are delighted to partner with Reliance Communications. We are currently working with industry leaders across countries and this exclusive partnership will enable millions of Reliance customers to experience the most innovative way to send messages, music, pictures and videos to leverage the power of data through their smart communication devices."

As per the ‘My College Plan’, students can be a part of only one college group at a time. They will be charge for any data consumed by browsing external links from Facebook.