New Delhi, Aug 25 (PTI): Website of Reliance Jio today crashed after pre-booking for "effectively free" JioPhone started in the evening today.

The website displayed "Content Server Error" around 5.30 pm.

While pre-booking figure could not be ascertained officially, rush of people was seen at some Jio stores surveyed in Delhi.

A store in central Delhi claimed to have booked about 100 phones in offline mode within 15-20 minutes. However, the rush was not as heavy as was seen at the time of Jio sim purchase when the company started opened its trial services for general public.

Reliance Retail has started pre-booking of JioPhone though its stores, franchisees, Jio website and application against refundable deposit of Rs 500. The customers will be required to pay another Rs 1,000 at the time of delivery of the phone in September.

The entire Rs 1,500 will be refunded to the buyer after 36 months on returning the phone.

People turned up at a Jio store in the central Delhi before the pre-booking started and paid Rs 500 along with their details for the phone.

As per the details available at Jio Store, the phone has 2 megapxiel front camera, VGA camera on the front, 4GB internal storage which can be expanded to 128 GB with help of memory card and 2000 mAh battery.

RIL Chairman and MD Mukesh Ambani had announced that voice calling for customers of the JioPhone would always be free and they would get unlimited data for a month against payment of Rs 153.

Jio has also announced a weekly plan for Rs 53 and a 2- day plan for Rs 23 for unlimited data access.

JioPhone, which can be operated by speaking out instructions to dial, type messages and the like will come with pre-loaded Jio apps for messaging and entertainment. The phone can be connected with television sets for watching live TV using the Jio TV app.

The phone will also include some of the popular instant messaging and social networking apps, the channel partner said.