Idea Cellular Launches Rs.149 Voice-only Prepaid Recharge Plan: Offers Unlimited Calling For 21 Days

Idea Cellular is the midst of a complicated merger deal with Vodafone India. The Kumaramangal Birla owned telecom giant has been working round the clock to complete India’s largest telecom merger deal with Vodafone India but it has hit roadblocks with the DoT stalling the merger with large bank guarantees against the companies’ outstanding dues. But this hasn’t prevented India’s third largest telecom operator from launching innovative offers to stay relevant in the Indian telecom industry.

Idea’s New 149 plan:

In a bid to compete with other telecom companies in India, Idea Cellular has launched a voice-only plan for its customers. Despite the fact that internet data is bundled into almost every plan, some customers prefer to purchase a voice only connection, where they can use their mobile phones to make calls. Idea Cellular has targeted these customers by launching its Rs. 149 voice only plan. Under this plan, users are offered unlimited voice calling benefits – both local, as well as STD calls and also no roaming charges, are applicable for voice calls. Apart from this 100 free SMSs are offered to the users. As the name suggests, this plan only offers voice call benefits and mobile data isn’t offered.

The voice calls are capped by Idea to 250 minutes per day and 1000 minutes per week. Apart from this, another condition restricts users to avail voice call benefits only when the calls are being made to 100 unique mobile/landline numbers during this validity period. If this limit is exhausted then the users are charged as per tariff, which 1 paise per second for every voice call. The plan has a validity period of 21 days.

Idea Cellular has launched this plan in a bid to counter rivals including BSNL and Airtel. The largest private telecom player, Bharti Airtel offers a similar voice only plan which is priced at Rs. 299. This plan has a validity period of 45 days and comes with unlimited local and national voice calls, no roaming charges and 100 free SMSes bundled in. The plan doesn’t offer any mobile data connectivity.

BSNL’s Voice only plan:

Similarly state-owned telecom operator BSNL offers two voice call only plans. First is the Rs. 99 plan, where users are provided with unlimited local and national calls to any telecom operator, no roaming charges and 100 free SMSes per day. This plan comes without any data connectivity and comes with a validity period of 28 days. The second plan is the Rs. 319 plan where users are offered the same benefits as the Rs. 99 plan, but with a validity period of 90 days. Apart from this, users are also provided with free caller tune services (also known as Personalised Ring Back Tone [PRBT]) activated along with these plans.

None of these plans come with any added mobile data offers, but the idea of the plans are to provide voice calling benefits to users, who aren’t too keen on availing mobile data or are always connected to the internet through Wi-Fi. Alternately, users of Idea’s voice only plan can combine the benefits of this plan with some other plan that offers plenty of mobile data for its users. Users can combine the Rs. 149 voice only plan along with another plan such as the Rs. 92 plan, where users are provided with 6GB of mobile data for seven days.

Another combination that Idea Cellular users can try is to combine the voice only Rs. 149 plan with the Rs. 199 unlimited combo, which provides 1.4GB of mobile data per day along with unlimited voice calls and no roaming charges. – My Smart Price