You're better off without Jio in your life for now

Mukesh Ambani has done his best to win India with Reliance Jio. While it joined the telecom market late, Jio wooed customers with its unique welcome scheme: free voice calls, free SMS and free 4G data (upto 4GB every day!), till December 31, 2016.

Telecom giants like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and others, on September 30, sought a meeting with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) chairman RS Sharma to express concern over the supposedly “predatory” Jio Welcome Offer (JWO). They pointed out that the free calls and free data offer was a violation of TRAI’s rule on a three-month cap for promotional plans.

TRAI on October 20 said Reliance Jio can offer its free promotional offer till December 3, noting that the tariffs offered were neither predatory nor discriminatory.

Customers who want to avail the benefits of JWO should subscribe to it before December 3, failing which they would have to pay as per the tariffs announced by the company. Existing customers, however, will be able to enjoy the free offers till December 31.

According to a PTI report, Reliance Jio claims it has been getting 0.6 million-1.1 million new customers per day. But with the entire hullabaloo, is Jio really the next big thing in the Indian telecom market?

1) Call drops are pretty frequent

According to The Financial Express, the company has reported that 75 calls are failing out of every 100 call attempts made. It is estimated that more than 120 million calls to the top three telecom operators (Airtel, Vodafone and Idea) failed every day in September. As of October 8, Jio SIM users have allegedly experienced average call drops as high as 87 per cent on Vodafone and 67 per cent on Idea network.

While Jio has blamed telcos for this, claiming they are not letting Jio use enough interconnection points, resulting in congestion in network, Bharti Airtel has thwarted these claims, saying Jio’s network efficiencies are the cause of the large number of call drops and providers had given enough interconnection points to Jio to handle its traffic.

2) Data speed disappoints

Jio promised the best mobile data speed India has experienced, and it did - for a couple of days. While 4G data speed continues to fluctuate every now and then, users have also complained that data speed is also subject to movement.

Remaining stationary allows speed to be more or less consistent, while travelling on the Metro or in a car renders Jio data as bad as other telcos. In fact, on several occasions, Airtel’s 4G has proved to be faster than Jio.

3) Compatibility

Even free offers come at a price. The JWO promises its customer the world but it is worth noting that the customers have to be worthy of it. Jio’s awesome offers of 4G data and HD voice calls can only work on select handsets. Any handset that is 4G VoLTE-ready will be able to enjoy Jio's offer.

VoLTE stands for voice-over-LTE. What it basically means is that on these handsets, voice calls are carried over a 4G LTE network, rather than the 2G or 3G connections, which are usually used. Calls over a 4G network reduce drops and increase clarity and voice quality.

But even with a VoLTE handset, a lot of Jio customers have reported problems with SIM cards. SIM cards, especially in dual-SIM phones, sometimes do not seem to work at all. Jio customers have also reported that it takes a long time for the SIM card to be activated on their handsets.

It is easy to lure millions of customers with free offers. Free offers, by virtue, are not answerable to complaints, but what happens when these customers can no longer avail the free offer? Will Jio be able to retain the majority of them at the beginning of the new year? Reliance still has two months to sort these issues out.

Also read - What to do if Jio not living up to its speed promises