It’s been months since Jio has been introduced, but the telecom sector still isn’t recovered from the impact it has drawn. From the past few months to overcome the charm of Reliance Jio, the top mobile operators in the country have been coming up with exciting offers to retain their customers. On September 5, Jio unveiled free voice calls and free data under its ‘Welcome Offer’ for the first three months which has now extended till March 31 of 2017. Jio’s Rs 149 plan includes unlimited voice calls, 300 MB data and 100 local and national SMS for a 28-day period.
To compete with Reliance Jio, in the first week of December Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) announced that their subscribers will soon be able to make unlimited local and national voice calls to any network for Rs 149 a month. The new monthly tariff plan, expected to be introduced on January 1 and BSNL chairman Anupam Shrivastava mentioned that the plan would also include 300 MB of data.
Following the footsteps of BSNL, Airtel, also launched two new bundled packs for its prepaid customers with free voice calling and substantial data benefits. One pack that is priced at Rs 145 offers 300 MB data to customers with 4G ready mobile phones along with free Local and STD Airtel-to-Airtel calls. The other pack that is priced at Rs 345, offers 1 GB data to customers with 4G ready mobile phones along with free calls to any network in India. Both the packs will have a validity of 28 days and offers 50 MB data to customers with basic mobile phones.
Idea Cellular, actually replicated Bharti Airtel’s decision by announcing two similarly priced bundled packs combining free voice calls with 4G data. Idea is offering free voice calls nationally bundled with 300 MB and 1 GB of 4G data respectively for prepaid customers subscribing to its Rs 148 and Rs 348 packs with 28-days validity. Like Airtel, Idea prepaid users opting for the base Rs 148 pack can make free STD calls only on the company’s own networks, while those opting for the higher Rs 348 pack can make free STD calls to any network across India.
Though all these announcements are actually to match the tariff offered by competitors, but it will be the customers who will be stuck in between as they will be confused about what to choose for and what not to…