Mukesh bhai wants me to switch to Reliance Jio, but should I?

Everyone's papa and India's favourite Ambani, Mukhesh bhai on Thursday rocked everyone's world with the official red carpet event for Reliance Jio, his revolutionary (kind of) telecommunications service.

"Demand for digital oxygen, data, is increasing... Mission of Reliance Jio is to take India from data shortage to data abundance. Jio makes India the highest quality, lowest price data market in the world," Mukesh Ambani said on Thursday.

Mukesh bhai is offering 4G/LTE at knockdown prices and is throwing in 3G data like the local cigarette shop throws in candy.

Reliance has been pushing Jio more aggressively than Modi shoved "Acche din" and "Vikas" down our throats, and it's kinda working.

A friend of mine was travelling to Rajasthan and when his car reached a network blindspot, none of his friends could get network. He's an early adopter of Jio and while his friends were trying to find one bar to make a call, he was busy watching Bajirao Mastani at 4G speed.

So should you ditch trusted but overpriced lieutenants like Airtel and Vodafone and jump on the Jio train?

Here's what you need to know:

1) No Jio user will have to pay for a voice call in India. Ever. Like really. You also get free access to Jio apps, but details about their functionality are scarce at the moment.

2) 50 bucks for 1GB of data. This is ridiculously cheap, making Jio the cheapest data provider in the world. They have 10 plans, from Rs 150 to Rs 5,000 a month.

3) The average Jio plan, let's take the Rs 499 one, gives 4GB of data with additional free 4G at night, with free voice calls for 28 days. That is super cheap!

4) Also, all data on Jio is free till December 31 of this year. Yes, Mukesh bhai is bringing in the biggest gun in the Indian market: Free stuff.

So should you make the switch?

If you compare it to Airtel or Vodafone's prices, Jio is giving way more value.

Vodafone's Delhi Red 699 plan, for example, is giving 2GB of data with 1,000 voice calls and 200 text messages.

Airtel's comparative plan, dubbed MyPlan, gives the user the opportunity to customise it. I tried, and for Rs 599, got 1.3GB data, 540 minutes of local calls, 150 minutes of STD calls and 200 text messages.

Vodafone and Airtel plans right now are way more expensive and give two to three times less data compared to the corresponding Jio plan. Also, FREE CALLS FOR LIFE.

This is an absolute slam dunk for Jio in every way.

Also read: How one billion mobile phones can change India

The only thing which should concern you is how well the network is going to hold up.

Mukesh bhai himself acknowledged that a huge number of calls dropped last week alone on Jio, but blamed the incumbent networks, saying they aren't giving Jio "interconnectivity".

With Jio entering at such disruptive prices, one expects the other networks to display some gamesmanship, but this could hurt your prospects of having a stable calling network.

The other thing to consider is speed.

The number of people consuming Jio's bandwidth is miniscule to that of Airtel and Vodafone. What happens when more and more people flock for cheaper rates? Will the airways hold up, which are already struggling with connectivity?

My advice is that get a Jio sim, available for free in many places, and test it out when you don't have an immediate need to make important calls.

You can enjoy the ample data for a couple of months and see how the network holds up with time. This also makes your current service provider sweat (they are already slashing prices left, right and centre owing to crash in stock prices and fear of losing customers).

Jio is cool, Mukesh bhai might've finally taken the first step in making India truly digital at ridiculously low data prices, but you might not want to make it your primary network just yet.

Also read: My advice to Mr Modi on making Digital India a success

PS: I'm looking for my free Jio sim card as you finish reading this.