BSNL appears to be facing the pressure from regional rivals like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel as the state-owned operator has now announced updated postpaid plans with additional data benefits. This promotion is only valid on some tiers, however.
The company’s postpaid data benefits are as follows:
Plan 99 - 250MB data (previously zero)
Plan 225 - 1GB data (previously 200MB)
Plan 325 - 2GB data (previously 250MB)
Plan 525 - 3GB (previously 500MB)
Plan 725 - 5GB (previously 1GB)
Customers of the aforementioned postpaid plans will automatically receive these data benefits. The changes have officially come into effect starting July 1, 2017. The carrier has mentioned that customers of Plan 799, Plan 1125 and Plan 1525 will not be eligible for any further data benefits. These packs will continue to get only 10, 20 and 30GB of data respectively.
One can assume that BSNL’s hand was forced here as the company was struggling to keep up with the competitive data plans offered by rival networks like Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular etc. While Jio is currently ruling the roost, other carriers are offering attractive incentives to the customers in order to make their offerings stand out from the crowd.
Vodafone is giving away free 12-month Netflix subscriptions with the hope to lure in some new subscribers. Since Jio’s free data benefits have ended in June, it will be interesting to see what the carrier will come up with over the next few days. If history is any indication, the carrier is expected to announce some more disruptive plans, resulting in endless headaches for rival carriers.
