Jio 4G Free SIM: Expect to face these 6 issues

Since September 5, a free Jio 4G SIM is available to anyone who has a 4G-compatible phone and a valid ID card. Ideally, you are just supposed to visit a Reliance Digital store or a Reliance Xpress Mini store near your place and get a SIM. And many are doing so.

But in case you are still on the fence and trying to figure how it all is going to play out, what kind of service you will get and what is that you can expect from the Jio SIM, we do have something to share. If you decide to get the Jio SIM, you will possibly get some awesome internet speed. But at the same time, you will also face the following issues:

1. Long wait: 

There is a long wait for the Jio SIM and depending on your luck getting the SIM and then getting it activated may take anything from a few days to a couple of weeks. Although, if you go to a Jio store where the Aadhar-based registration and activation is working, you may end up with a working SIM, according to Reliance, within a few hours. The problem, for now is that this activation process requires -- yes, you guessed it right -- an Aadhar card. Also, this mechanism is only available in select stores in Mumbai and Delhi though Reliance is working to fix it. In normal circumstances, there is a huge wait. Most likely you will have to leave your number at the store and once your turn comes -- probably after a few days -- you will have to go there again to get the SIM. The activation will then take another few days.

    

2. On and off connection: 

The Jio connection is rather unstable nowadays, more so after the September 5, possibly due to the rush. If you are stationary, it works well enough and the signal strength is good. But as soon as you move, it becomes unstable. It sort of has a mind of its own. At one moment, it will be chugging along at 20mbps but the next moment, as soon as you hit that send button in the email app, it will vanish, with an exclamation mark popping up on the network signal icon in the phone. To be fair to Jio, all networks suffer these kind of issues and for now, the Jio seems particularly flaky.

3. Hotspot is a problem: 

So you thought that you will get the Jio SIM and use it to create a hotspot. Well, you can do it. But the speed is not going to be great and once again, the reliability of the connection is a bit suspicious. Even though the network will notch up speed of above 20mbps in speed test apps, if you use it for browsing and downloading etc, the speed will be barely higher than 2mbps. At times it could be as low as 300kbps to 400kbps. If you use to download something through torrent, it's slightly better. But on YouTube, not so much. The hotspot mileage will vary from user to user but one thing is certain, you would rarely get even half of the speed that the network notches up in speed test. Although, speed during wee hours (3am-4am type) is much better.

4. Voice call issues: 

This is already well-reported and I am not even sure if it is a problem with Jio. The company is at -- a sort of -- war with the existing telecom operators like Airtel and Vodafone and it seems the way these Jio calls are connected to numbers that use networks of other operators has some issues. Not sure whose fault it is but as a consumers, you should be ready to expect some issues with voice calls on Jio SIM.

5. SIM card not working: 

While theoretically, the Jio SIM is supposed to work in all 4G phones, that is not the case. In many cases, particularly if your phone is older than 1 year, it is possible that the Jio SIM may not work. This could be due to several reasons. Maybe the phone is missing right software support for India's LTE network or maybe it is missing some critical hardware. The good thing is that because Jio SIM is free, even if it doesn't work in your phone, you won't lose anything.

    

6. App and speed differences: 

A mobile network has many nuts and bolts that need to be tuned and we suspect that Jio is still tuning them, particularly now when millions of people are using it. This is the reason why the Jio can be fantastic in some apps but frustratingly slow in some others. It's all sort of random. For example, in an app like Facebook it will play a video in an awesome way. But in YouTube it will struggle. At some other point of time, it will all be reverse. So do expect the network to swing widely.