Reliance Jio is now allowing its users to download an unlimited quantum of data at night under its Happy New Year offer.
This is different from the earlier practice of allowing users to consume only 4GB of data per 24 hours.
With this new feature, subscribers can download or consume 30 GB or 40 GB or even more data between 2 am and 5 am without affecting their download speeds.
This is a feature, not a bug, in the Happy New Year tariff plan, and is likely to be available even after March 31.
As we explained in an earlier report, Jio has also removed the 24-hour suspension of high-speed services for those who cross the 1 GB cap.
BIG DOWNLOADS ANYONE?
This is likely to come as welcome news to many Jio users. The 1GB limit has given ‘withdrawal symptoms’ to a lot of people who were used to watching lots of videos online over the last three months under the Welcome Offer, which used to give 4GB of free data per day.
The cap was brought down to 1 GB so that Reliance Jio can continue to sign up new users without degrading user experience. Reliance had signed up around 72.4 mln users by the end of December, and is likely to cross the 100 mln mark around Feb 15.
By Mar 3, after which the Happy New Year offer will no longer be given to new subscribers, Jio is likely to end up with around 105-110 mln subscribers. From Apr 1, the company will start charging everyone for data and voice.The facility of unlimited night-time download on the Happy New Year offer gives users who need to do download big files an easy way out.
The only other wireless operator which gives a comparable facility is BSNL. Under BSNL’s unlimited plans, you can download as much as you want throughout the day. The plan starts at Rs 1099 per month and is available for 3G users.
Though it is not possible to wake up at night just to manage one’s downloads, it is possible keep one’s phone or PC on at night for downloading the required files.
Moreover, apps like Netflix and Youtube also have download buttons. If you set a video to download before going to sleep, it should be ready and available in the morning.
However, it should be kept in mind that most Android phones go to ‘sleep’ when not in use and many of them turn off CPU-intensive apps when sleeping. This could disrupt the download process. It is made even worse by the so-called ‘memory saving’ and ‘battery saving’ apps. These apps shut down most of the apps running in the background to save battery and application memory.