MUMBAI: Bringing Mukesh Ambani's vision of digitising the entire country to get its people to use the internet is a step closer to fruition. Reliance Jio has opened its service for the general public on a ‘trail’ basis. There are a couple of conditions attached though for now. One can buy the Jio sim-card after getting an invite from employees of Reliance Industries group firms and must buy an LYF handset. Reliance’s LYF range of mobile devices cost between Rs 5,599 and Rs 19,499 each.

A few days ago, the company had said, "The launch is now being expanded to others in the ecosystem. This test programme will be progressively upgraded into commercial operations in coming months."

The invite from an employee reads, "As we inch closer towards our commercial launch, we are providing our near and dear ones (Yes you!) a chance to test out our network”.

RIL organisation’s employee under the scheme can invite 10 people to buy the Jio's 4G sim and LYF handset. The connection comes along with unlimited 4G mobile internet and phone call service for 90 days. The invitee will need to pay Rs 200 to activate the services.This will also grant user free unlimited access to Jio's 4G mobile applications like Jio Play, Jio On-demand, JioMag, JioBeats, Jio Drive etc for 90 days.

RIL claims to have approximately 5 lakh users currently using its network during the trial phase and has seen that the average monthly consumption per user is in excess of 18 gigabyte within the first month of service. The average voice usage is over 250 minutes within the first month claims the company.