Jio Fiber ends free broadband services, starts billing customers

Free broadband services enjoyed by early adopters of Jio Fiber are going to end soon. Reports suggest that Reliance Jio has started asking such Jio Fiber users to select one of the home broadband plans. The telecom company is reportedly migrating around 5 lakh users, who came aboard for Jio Fiber trials ahead of the commercial launch in September, from free broadband services to specific tariff plans.

All Jio Fiber customers who paid Rs 2,500 refundable security deposit are now being charged in metro markets. Commercial billing on a pan-India basis should be functional in the next couple of weeks, The Economic Times reported. Reliance Jio is likely to complete the process of onboarding its free broadband users to the billing system in a phased manner over a month, the report added. The company has not confirmed this yet.

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"Existing customers who had opted for the trials are being told that free home broadband services will be discontinued shortly and they need to migrate to specific Jio Fiber plans to stay connected," another person aware of the development told the daily.

Plans to start billing Jio Fiber services were held up for more than two months as the system to charge Jio customers for 4G and home broadband services took some time to stabilise, the report added.

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With free broadband services coming to an end, Jio Fiber subscribers will have to choose from the existing plans. Jio Fibre offers data speeds in the range of 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps, with plans starting from Rs 699 and going all the way up to Rs 8,499.

Jio Fibre subscribers have to make payment of Rs 2,500 - Rs 1,500 refundable security deposit and Rs 1,000 installation charges - and purchase required peripherals for additional services like cloud gaming, video calling, VR experience, and such. The higher plans will also come with Jio's First-Day, First-Show service and special sports content.

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