Reliance Jio, the telecom services provider from Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries, has extended the period for its subscribers to sign up for its Membership program up to Apr 15. It will also provide three months of free service for any member who signs up for its monthly packages starting at Rs 303 per month.
In other words, a customer has to recharge with 303, 499 or any other higher plan, but won’t be charged for the service for the first three months. The recharge will come into effect only on the fourth month.
The company also said it acquired 72 mln users under the loyalty program.
“Every PRIME member, when they make their first paid recharge prior to 15th April using Jio’s Rs 303 plan (or any higher value plan), will get services for the initial 3 months on a complimentary basis.
The paid tariff plan will be applied only in July, after the expiry of the complimentary service. The Jio Summer Surprise is the first of many surprises for PRIME members,” it said.
“Considering the unprecedented demand for enrolling to PRIME and doing the first recharge, Jio has extended the deadline for purchasing Rs 303 (and other) plans till 15th April. This extension will provide the necessary breathing room for users to avoid service disruption during the transition from free to paid services.
Customers who could not enrol for PRIME by 31 st March for whatever reason can still do so by paying Rs 99 along with their first purchase of Jio’s Rs 303 and other plans till 15th April.”
You can read the full letter from Mukesh Ambani MDA_Customer letter_Final
Today’s extension of the deadline comes at the end of a hectic day as millions of people tried to enroll themselves for the loyalty program on the final day of the offer period.
SERVER CRASH
Sign ups on the final day of the registration period were disrupted by a crash at Billdesk, the payments processing company that was in charge of the back-end processing for the recharge amounts. Billdesk servers, as well as the Billdesk website, remained offline for several minutes in the morning.
The logjam at the back-end led many users to try to recharge their numbers again and again, in turn leading to Jio’s website — which was the front end — also slowing down and becoming non-responsive.
Though Billdesk came back online after a few minutes, the front-end traffic on the operator’s website had grown manifold by then and services were disrupted on practically all platforms: the company’s website, app and third-party payment providers.
PRIME REASONS
Jio Prime entitles its members to two-three times the data that they would otherwise get on regular tariff plans.
For example, the Rs 303 plan will give 1 GB of data per day for a period 28 days, while the 499 plan would give 2 GB per day, also for 28 days.
In addition, today also marked the final date for the Buy One, Get One offer, under which anyone buying the 303 plan gets 5 GB extra per month and anyone purchasing the 499 plan gets 10 GB extra per month.
Moreover, the scheme also enables users to queue up to 13 recharges under the 303 and 499 schemes to avail of the BOGO scheme for a period of one year.
So far, only BSNL has responded to Jio’s aggressive Prime offers. The state-owned operator is promising 2 GB per day at Rs 339 per month — which is cheaper than what RJio offers. However, the offer is valid only on its 3G network, as it does not have a 4G service yet. BSNL’s 4G service will be started by the end of this year or early in 2018.
Other operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone will respond next month.