Reliance Jio 4G entered the telecom spectrum with a band. The operator gave everything for free including calls, messages, and data, in return gained 100 million subscribers in just 170 days. It started with Free Jio Welcome offer for 3 months, which was extended further for 90 days under Happy New offer. But, all this will end come March 31. If Jio will be able to retain the glorifying user base is yet to be seen.
To start off, Reliance Jio has announced a new Prime Member offer for current subscribers. Under this offer, the existing customers can subscribe to Jio Prime membership with one-time payment of Rs 99, and after that, they have to pay Rs 303 a month for 1GB data per day (30GB of 4G data in a month) till March 2018.
There will be a definite impact on the user base once charges come into play, but the new Prime offer with Rs 10 per GB per day (Rs 303 per month) is the best deal by a distance. The only conundrum for the customers will be the quality of service, many users feel Reliance Jio is highly unreliable for making and receiving calls.
Going by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) data, Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea Cellular lead the pack in terms of 4G download speed. The report for the first month of 2017 showed Airtel at the top with 11.862Mbps average speed, followed by Idea at 10.562Mbps, and Vodafone at 10.301Mbps. The new telecom giant Reliance Jio was trailing at 8.345Mbps for the month of January. And when it comes to uploading speeds, Vodafone leads the pack at 5.696Mbps, followed by Idea at 5.631Mbps, and Airtel at 4.718Mbps. Here too Reliance Jio came fourth with an average speed of 2.276Mbps.
As far as the tariff packs are concerned, Airtel offers 1GB of 4G data and unlimited calling for Rs 345 for 28 days and 30 GB of data for 90 days for Rs 1,495. Vodafone has a similar offer with unlimited calling and 1GB of 4G data (or 50MB of 3G) for 28 days for Rs 349. While Idea offers 1GB of data per month and unlimited calling for Rs 348 for 28 days (4G users can avail extra 3 GB data per month).
Hence, it will be interesting to see if users flock to Airtel, Vodafone or Idea once the Reliance Jio services become payable.