At a time when Reliance Jio's free voice call service has been plagued by call drop issues, BSNL looks set to compete with it through an unlimited voice call tariff initiative starting at Rs 149 per month. This offer is likely to be rolled out in the new year.
Along with offering free voice calls, both local and STD, BSNL's Rs 149 plan would also include 300MB data. However, this data offering is expected to be 3G and not 4G LTE. Also, the free voice calls from BSNL (for Rs 149) would not be restricted to home networks alone and would be allowed on all wireless networks.
The state-owned telco is said to be planning to make this proposal official from January 1 2017. What makes this offer more attractive is the fact that BSNL's network has improved during the last couple of years. The telecom network has also come out with more customised tariff offers targeting almost every user segment. This factor also led to a price war directly between BSNL and Reliance Jio.
Speaking of Jio, it is worth noting that the Mukesh-Ambani owned telecom service also offers an identical Rs 149 plan consisting of free voice calls, 100 free text messages and 0.3 GB of data, all valid for 28 days.
Recently, BSNL introduced a Rs 498 plan that offers unlimited 3G data to prepaid users for a period of 14 days. This offering seems to be a promotional offer, as it is slated to end on January 7 2017.
[Source: Economic Times].
