Will Reliance Jio end free 4G data, voice calls in December or March 2017?

Reliance Jio's free welcome offer has been a boon to the Indian mobile users, but that is about to change soon enough. There has been a lot of confusion about whether Jio will stop offering its free stream of services on December 31 or continue them till March 2017. As the new reports suggest, Jio users are in for some bad news.

If you were hoping to get Jio services offered for free till March 2017, lower your expectations. According to the latest reports, Reliance Jio has published flyers and brochures to promote its new tariffs to both new and existing users. In those brochures, the paid tariffs are said to be applicable from January 1, 2017.

This report conflicts an earlier statement from analysts at Motilal Oswal, which said, "Mass scale free welcome offer could continue until March 2017 to attract subscriber growth towards the celebrated 100 million mark." Since the company hasn't commented on neither, it is hard to tell which one's true. In our advice, it is best to keep low expectations and take advantage of what little time is left for Jio's free services.

This is no reason to be disheartened as another report by Gizbot suggests that Jio might be planning to introduce a new offer dubbed as "Welcome Offer 2" on December 3, which will continue to offer the free services for the next 90 days. As per TRAI regulations, free promotional offers from telcos should not exceed more than 90 days, but Jio has successfully used some workaround tactics to make its users happy in the past.

So, don't be surprised if the rumoured "Welcome Offer 2" is announced on December 3, which means the extended free data offering would go on till March 3, 2017. This will also give Reliance Jio enough time to improve its unreliable voice call network and pump up the speeds of 4G data, which has dropped drastically over the past weeks.

As great as the new scheme sounds, the report says that the "Welcome Offer 2" will be applicable only for new customers. As for existing users, the free offerings will come to an end on December 31 and the new tariffs will start on January 1, 2017.