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New Year celebrations came early in India as Reliance Jio on Thursday announced free data and calls for all till March 31, 2017.

Reliance Jio never seizes to impress. On December 1, RIL chairman and managing director Mukesh Ambani addressed the nation of 1.3 billion people in a brief 30-minute speech. There were several things that were announced by Ambani surrounding the new telco's growth, achievements and next plan of action in India.

The main highlight of Ambani's speech on Thursday was the announcement of Jio Happy New Year offer, which offers unlimited data, voice, video, Wi-Fi, and Jio apps for free until March 31, 2017. Another major takeaway was around digitisation of India and support to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision of a cashless economy.

Below we have listed the top 10 takeaways from Ambani's speech on Thursday:

  1. Jio Happy New Year offer gives unlimited 4G data, voice calls and Jio apps for free till March 31, 2017 for new subscribers signing up for the network starting December 4, 2016.
  2. All the existing 52 million Jio users will be automatically switched from Jio Welcome Offer to Jio Happy New Year offer on January 1, 2017, to continue using free services till March 31, 2017.
  3. The FUP limit for unlimited 4G LTE data has been brought down from 4GB per day to 1GB a day for better speeds.
  4. Users can consume additional data beyond 1GB at regular speeds by choosing suitable recharge options from Jio's tariffs. Aadhaar-based micro-ATMs will be deployed all across the country.
  5. JioMoney Merchant Solutions will enable digital transactions of all types.
  6. Merchants can download the application from their phones' app stores from December 5.
  7. Users can pay merchants using JioMoney app and merchants, no matter how small, can accept payments directly to their bank accounts using the JioMoney Merchant app.
  8. JioMoney Merchant app will enable merchants to make supplier payments, transfer money between accounts and use digital petty cash.
  9. JioMoney will sign up 10 million small retailers in the coming weeks across 17,000 towns and 4 lakh villages.

If you were expecting more around public Wi-Fi, GigaFiber broadband, Jio DTH and 4G feature phones, it looks like you will have to wait longer.

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