No, I haven’t done any more than one recharge on my Jio number because it was all free offers from the new network provider that brought about a lot of promises for its subscribers. It was free, it was good. But, we do accept that the free Internet and offers had to end some day.
Now, we start paying for it. And thus, now we also get to decide whether to continue with this network or to stay with the previous one that we had been using as the primary number all the while. I had a story pending to be written and the title read “Thanks to Reliance Jio, data costs on other networks are affordable now!”. It was all true, and then came in a new offer from Jio – recharge for a month on Prime and get it for four months in total.
Soon after that, rather than 15th April that was set as the last date for the recharge, April 7th was made the last one and it was announced the day before. Not enough time for the news to spread and people didn’t realize it was already the last day.
But the bigger question is – Why is there so much of hoopla around something that is affordable? It should be affordable, from everyone.
I agree with some who say that Jio is making TRAI a scapegoat and using its name for the end to the offer when TRAI has a capability to force rules onto something, it has the same power to force it against it as well. Doesn’t it? TRAI needs to realize that it can ask not just Jio but the other network providers to offer data for cheaper rates.
It wasn’t realized by anyone before the entry of Jio that they were paying hefty amounts for even one GB of data, and now, each of these network providers is giving a GB of data per day for similar prices. Do you understand that it wasn’t hard for them to do it, but the entire group shook hands with each other to have the data prices high and thus, there was nothing that the consumer was able to do, except choose the best one based on the network because the data costs were almost the same from every network.
Dear Telecom Regulation Authority of India, it is you who should be directing every network to make data affordable. When you are a body representing the government of India, the govt. that is promoting digital technology so much that people were forced to use the Internet to make payments as well, you should also realize that the same Internet should be easily available for affordable costs.
Amit Bhawani from PhoneRadar started a Petition that will be forwarded to TRAI and the petition talks about how TRAI should be pro-consumer and not pro-company and thus, making things affordable will lead to a better future for India. If you are in support of this, Sign this petition and help it reach a bigger number of people. This petition is going to be forwarded to a good number of big decision makers including TRAI, Prime Minister of India, DOT, and also to Manoj Sinha, Minister of communication.
I wouldn’t say that TRAI purposely did this. It still could be true that Jio did it purposely and took TRAI’s name and happily accepted the latest rule that TRAI had sent across. When Jio, who didn’t give a heed to the previous such requests, why all of a sudden would they accept this one? But, the point here is about the affordability of Internet. We need to see a brighter future in digital India and it is only TRAI and the government that can make it happen.
