Last week, Jio announced a new plan called Jio Prime, to its customers. Essentially this is a one-time annual membership which costs Rs. 99, and is available for one month, from March 1st to 31st, 2017.
But what is Jio Prime really? Jio claims that Prime will give you unlimited free voice calls for local, STD, Roaming to any operator in the Country, data and SMS till 31st March 2018. This is only applicable, if you subscribe to a monthly Rs. 303 plan and above. You also get all of Jio's premium content like music, TV, etc for free.
But, there is something which might shock you.Jio Unlimited Night Data from 2 to 5 AM will not be available from April 1st 2017. So you will not have unlimited data speeds from 2 AM to 5 AM. Jio has silently scrapped this offer, without directly mentioning it on the plan page.
Jio has a page which specifically mentions this, and let us quote it here for your convenience.
Will unlimited night data be available to Jio Prime members?
Since we are providing disproportionate amount of data throughout the day, there is no differentiation in day or night. This is hugely beneficial for the customer, as the customer can now enjoy the benefit of unlimited data during any hour of the day, and does not necessarily have to wait for night time.
Another thing to note is that you can only connect 1 device at a time to your Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot, via Android's tethering. Here is the page which mentions that in the T & C, and the direct quote from the website.
The user device may be used as a personal hotspot connection (this is also known as tethering) for upto 1 device only at a time.
This makes Jio essentially a bait and switch service. Remember how the company offered 4GB/day at good speeds to attract users? Then it started slowing the speeds and switched from 4GB to 1GB/day with unlimited night downloads from 2 to 5 AM. Now you will be limited to 1GB/day at full speed after which you will get unlimited downloads at 128 Kbps which is much slower in reality.
Think twice before you decide to go for the Rs.303 plan. You only get 28GB per month now as opposed to the previous 30GB/month and unlimited speeds at night. Even if you opt for the Rs. 499/month plan which gives you 56GB/month, it is actually limited to 2GB/day (2GB x 28 days = 56GB per month). Well at least now you know the truth about Jio.
Thanks Grr for the tip.