BSNL Unveils New Double Data, Talk Time, Roaming Benefits for Prepaid Subscribers

Ever since Reliance Jio has entered the industry, private telecom operators like Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea have reduced their data prices and introduced lucrative offers regularly to keep its customer base from migrating. State run BSNL has also been doing the same, and at the very moment, the telecom provider has a bunch of offers for its subscribers owing to Independence Day, Onam, and more.

As part of its Independence Day offers, BSNL has announced full talk-time on low priced recharges like Rs. 20, Rs. 40, Rs. 60, and Rs. 80. The Rs. 120, Rs. 160, and Rs. 220 recharges will offer Rs. 130, Rs. 180, and Rs. 220 talk-time respectively.

Coming to data, there is a Rs. 78 plan which offers 1GB of data validity for five days. However, that has been doubled to 2GB for now. Similarly, Rs. 198 plan that offered 1GB of data for 28 days will now offer 2GB of data. The Rs. 291 plan will now offer double data at 4.4GB, and the Rs. 561 plan will now offer 10GB of data with a validity of 60 days. All of these offers will last till August 20 and are applicable for prepaid subscribers only.

These benefits and all other voice/SMS, Special Tariff Voucher (STV) and Combo Voucher benefits through different plans are applicable to the user even when they are on national roaming moving forward. This was also announced by BSNL as part of its Independence Day offers, and went into effect from August 15 in all areas where BSNL operates. R.K.Mittal, Director (CM) BSNL Board said in a statement, "Armed force personnel, professionals, business person, and students all will get more benefit from this scheme."

Separately, a limited period offer to celebrate Onam has also been launched. This plan is called the Onam Plan and it is applicable only for Kerala subscribers. The plan is priced at Rs. 44 and offers 500MB data benefits, 5 paise per minute for BSNL to BSNL calls (10 paise for BSNL to other network calls) for the first 30 days to its new customers only, talk value of Rs. 20, and a validity of 365 days. After you finish the prescribed data, additional data will be charged at 10 paise per MB (Rs. 100/GB). After the 30-day call subsidy, all calls under the Onam Plan, "from anywhere to any network in India," will be charged at one paisa per second.

There's also the option to add four numbers of friends and family who will also enjoy calls at 10 paise per minute to BSNL numbers and 20 paise per minute to other networks. A BSNL subscriber with this plan activated can add four members by SMSing FFE<>10 digit mobile number/LL to 123. To migrate from other plans, Kerala customers need to send an SMS to mobile number 123 in the format 'PLAN < space > ONAM'. New subscribers get a free SIM when activating this plan.

Apart from all these offers, BSNL also has a 'Sixer' or '666' plan which offers unlimited voice calls to any network, 2GB per day data, and comes with 60 day validity.