BSNL slashes prices of entry-level prepaid plans for wider adoption

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), the government-owned telecom company, has come up with new prices for its services to increase the affordability of plans. The company has revised the rates for plans costing below Rs 100 and has brought a difference of as much as Rs 2 in the plans’ prices, starting from October 18.

Initially, BSNL offered three plans – Rs 56, Rs 57, and Rs 58 – with varying validities. With the Rs 56 plan, customers get 5,600 seconds of talk time which is valid for 8 days. The Rs 57 plan comes with 10GB of data and access to Zing Entertainment Music and is valid for 10 days. The Rs 58 plan allows customers to extend their international roaming services for 30 days. According to the revised rates, the Rs 56 plan will now cost Rs 54; the Rs 57 plan will now cost customers Rs 56; Rs 58 plan is currently priced at Rs 57.

Interested customers can avail of the plans with revised rates by sending an SMS to 123 from their mobile sets. In addition, the new plans can also be availed through various digital portals, including the My BSNL application or the official BSNL website. However, the revised plans are, for now, only available for customers in Kerala, reported Kerala Telecom. The revised rates come at a time when the state-run enterprise is grappling with the current market to sustain and be profitable. According to a report by Telecom Talk, BSNL lost more than 60,000 subscribers in August 2021. Currently, BSNL’s active subscriber base stands at roughly 5.7 crores.

Although the telecom company is struggling to maintain its customer count, it is still not in a condition as bad as Vodafone-Idea. According to reports, the Vodafone-Idea conglomerate lost more than 83 lakh subscribers in August 2021, which is a lot in a month. Telecom Tycoons such as Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio, on the other hand, gained roughly 1.4 lakh and 6.5 lakh subscribers in a month. News18