Welcome Offer on Reliance Jio 4G Could Extend Till March 2017

The telecom operator doesn’t want to charge users till their quality of service improves.

Could Reliance Jio extend its free service? (Photo: The Quint)

As per fresh reports, Reliance Jio might extend their Welcome Offer till March 2017. Sources suggest Mukesh Ambani might make this official announcement on 28 December, birth anniversary of Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani. Here’s an earlier report by The Quint (24th October, 2016) explaining the reason for the extension.

For those who dreaded losing out on free 4G data on Reliance Jio December onwards, have a reason to rejoice. Reports suggest that the company could extend its Jio Welcome Offer till March 2017.

This means that users on the network will get free 4G data up to 4GB per day, till March 2017.

However, there is no official confirmation from Reliance yet. For now, such claims have only been made by analysts at Motiwal Oswal, who believe that Jio will go for the juggernaut to reach its targeted 100 million-user base.

Mass scale free welcome offer could continue until March 2017 to attract subscriber growth towards the celebrated 100 million mark with RJio’s indicative data pricing at Rs 130-140 per gigabyte (GB)

Motilal Oswal Report

The analysts’ reason for such claims is directly linked with the ongoing point of interconnectivity (POI) issue. Repeat call failure has forced many users to rely on their non-Jio number to make calls.

The matter was recently taken up by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), suggesting that Airtel, Vodafone and Idea pay Rs 50 crore per circle as penalty for failing to provide POIs to Jio.

Even Reliance Jio has expressed its concerns about connectivity, and said that they might have to extend the period of free service, if the situation doesn’t improve in the coming months.

Also read: Jio 4G Will Extend Free Services, If Calls Continue to Fail

The company’s division head also clarified that Reliance Jio won’t need TRAI’s permission, if they intend to extend the free offer. Even if Reliance Jio does end up extending the Welcome Offer, chances are they could find it hard to attract more users.

Their 4G speeds on their network have been gradually slowing down, in fact as per a recent TRAI report, Jio 4G is the slowest 4G service provider in the country.

Also Read: TRAI Says Reliance Jio Has Slowest 4G Speeds, Jio Defends Itself

(Source: Livemint)