Reliance Jio’s Welcome Offer, which gave users unlimited data, voice and video calls and messaging access on the Jio SIM is now over. The Welcome Offer has been replaced by the Happy New Year offer, which still offers free voice calls, video calling, messaging and data, but there’s a catch. The main change users need to keep in mind is that in the Welcome Offer there was a daily FUP (Fair Usage Policy) limit of 4GB. In Happy New Year offer, this limit is slashed to 1GB.
So what happens after you cross 1GB on your Reliance Jio SIM? Your speed will be slashed to 128KB/ps, according to the terms and conditions. So if you were browsing and downloading a lot on your Jio SIM, then you’ll have find that 1GB limit a problem from today onward. Reliance Jio’s Welcome offer was technically supposed to end on December 31, and January 1, 2017 was supposed to be the day when paid services came into effect.
But it looks like Reliance is adding a paid element to this Happy New Year Offer. For users who wish to continue using data at 4G speeds after consumption of their daily 1GB limit, they can now recharge with the company’s data packs. Recharging with the Rs 51 pack will give 1GB of additional 4G high speed data for the day, while a recharge with Rs 301 pack will give 6GB of additional data for 28 days.
However, the Happy New Year Offer ensures the Reliance Jio SIM and its connected services will remain free for users till March 31, 2017. While Reliance has extended the free services by another three months, telecom regulator TRAI has asked for an explanation on why this shouldn’t be considered a violation. Earlier TRAI had wanted the free services to end by December 3, which didn’t happen.
On December 29, Jio sent a detailed note explaining how its ‘Happy New Year Offer’ was different from the inaugural offer and does not qualify to be termed as predatory. According to a PTI report, Jio maintains the latest Happy New Year offer is substantially different from the Jio Welcome Offer (that commenced on September 5), which came with 4GB of free data per day.
Reliance Jio claims to be the fastest growing technology company in the world, and had close to 52 million subscribers in the beginning of December 2016, which is huge considering the service was rolled out in September.
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani had also explained why they decided to cap the FUP at 1GB per day, when he had announced the Happy New Year offer. According to him, this was done because some users were misusing their free data privileges and clogging the network for rest of the people. Reliance has also announced free home delivery of Jio SIMs for customers.
As far as Jio’s actual tariff plans go, they were first announced in September when the service went live. Prepaid plans start at as low as Rs 19, and go up all the way to Rs 1,499. Jio claims to have the cheapest data plans at Rs 50 per GB, but it should be noted most plans include some free access to JioNet hotspot WiFi data. In postpaid, plans start at Rs 149 and go up all the way to Rs 4,999.
Reliance Jio has promised it will always keep voice calling and messages free for customers.
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