BSNL Free Sunday Calls to Continue for Another Three Months

Exactly a week after announcing its decision to shut down free Sunday calls, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has now rolled back its decision by extending free voice calling benefits on Sundays for another three months. The about turn on the decision to roll back free Sunday calls by BSNL is a consumer-centric move that may help the company keep people on its landline network.

Since August 2016, BSNL has been offering its subscribers with free Sunday voice calling benefits that are available specifically for landline, combo, and FTTH broadband subscribers. The original scheme was revised by the operator in mid-January after which it started offering free calling benefits from 10.30pm to 6.30am instead of 9pm to 7am. Further, in a recent conversation with PTI, SP Tripathi, Chief General Manager of Calcutta Telephones (CalTel), which is BSNL's Kolkata unit, revealed that there are new plans in the pipeline to mitigate the impact derived from the free Sunday calls shutdown.

While BSNL hasn't specified any concrete details around the rollback of its decision, it is quite clear that the operator is facing a tough competition from various private telcos, including Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio. Last month, BSNL increased the validity of its unlimited call and data pack to offer more than 50 percent more data than before. This was indeed a competitive announcement to take on Reliance Jio that is already disrupting the telecom sector with its ultra-cheap unlimited voice call packs in India. BSNL has also started 4G mobile service, with Kerala as the first circle getting the high-speed network from the telecom operator.