2014: The Year of Tariff Hikes across Cellular, Landline, Broadband Services

Reported by Chethan S June 30th, 2014 at 02:01 pm

No service or industry can survive without tariff revisions - most of the times upward. The tariff wars which was a part of telecom sector for past few years, thanks to new entrants, seems to be going away. In the year 2014, we have seen a majority of telecom operators hike tariffs for their services. Today we make an attempt to enlist tariff hikes which caused major impact to consumers in the form of a table here:

Operator	Landline/Wired Broadband	Summary
BSNL	BSNL to Revise Monthly Charges for ‘General’ Urban and ‘One India’ Landline Customers	Rentals increased for once famous ‘One India’ Plan and General Plans by Rs. 15
	BSNL Hikes Broadband Tariff in 7 Limited Usage Pan-India Plans	The monthly rentals increased between Rs.24 and Rs.350 depending on the tariff plans.
	Exclusive : BSNL to Hike Broadband Modem Rentals from 1 April (Basic and WiFi)	Hikes of Rs. 20 to Rs. 30 were announced
	BSNL Hikes Tariffs of Select Broadband Unlimited Plans	BB Home Combo plan and Rural Combo plans revised
	BSNL to Increase Landline/CDMA (Fixed) Rentals, Reduce Freebies for Rural ‘General’ Customers	Rentals were hiked by a marginal amount of Rs. 10 per month and free calls (off-net) reduced by 10 units/month.
	BSNL to Increase Landline Rentals for Tamilnadu Specific Plans, Regularize Discounts for Serving/Retired Govt. Employees	Range of 10 - 16%
	Exclusive: BSNL to Reduce Freebies, Validities for Prepaid Mobile Customers Starting 26 May	Several drastic revisions were made including popular STVs. Our related article: Is BSNL Losing out on the Tariff Advantage? We try to Find Out
	Exclusive: BSNL to Reduce Pulse Duration of Calls from BSNL Landline/WLL (Fixed)/CDMA (Fixed) by 33%	1. Maximum impact on customers calling BSNL numbers (landline and non-10 digit WLL) with revision of 33% – earlier 180 seconds to 120 seconds 2. For calls to BSNL Mobile and 10-digit WLL number plus other networks’ landline/WLL (non-10 digit numbers) the revision is 25% – earlier 120 seconds to 90 seconds
	BSNL to Increase On-Net Free Calls from Fixed Phones, provide new STVs to Prepaid Mobile Users	1. Off-net calls went away 2. 1 GB data STV for Rs. 155 3. Local calling STV revised - Rs. 1.4p/2 seconds at Rs. 122 for 90 days
	End of a Golden Era: BSNL to do Away with Night Unlimited Broadband Plans?	BSNL's ultra popular night unlimited download goes away; customers to pay less during night time when compared to day
	BSNL to Increase Postpaid Data Tariffs, Introduce Data and Social Add-on Packs for Whatsapp, Facebook and Twitter	Postpaid data tariffs increased, exclusive social packs launched
	BSNL to charge for “Missed Call Alerts” starting July 1st	A free service earlier to be charged at Rs. 30 per month
Airtel	Airtel Revises it’s Tariff in Delhi & Mumbai	An increase of 33% reported
	Is it time to Switch from Airtel Broadband? Rentals to increase by up to 40%	Steep increase of up to 40% for entry level plans
	Airtel Drastically Reduces Validity of 2G Data Pack, Revises Rate Cutter Benefits with Tariff Hikes	Validities reduced by up to a week, rate cutter costs increased plus the tariff benefits under rate cutters revised
	Airtel Increases 2G Data Prices by 29%, Reduces Benefits	Entry level packs tariffs increased by 29%, validity reduction
Vodafone	Vodafone IN Hikes it’s Pay as you Go Internet rates to 4p/10KB	Pay as you go Internet rates doubled
Tata Docomo	Tata Docomo Revised CDMA Data Plans for Prepaid Mobile Users
MTS India	MTS Withdraws Night (True) Unlimited MBlaze Rev A Plans	Truly unlimited plans withdrawn

BSNL in a bid to turn around has been aggressively revising tariffs across segments - landline, broadband and mobile telephony. BSNL has been reporting losses for few years now. For private operators, the tariff hikes were triggered by spectrum costs and is also a bid to protect the bottom line.

Did we miss any important tariff revision? Do let us know through comments with details about operator and circle.

Note: The above table is essentially a compiled list of information we published and does not include every hike which happened in 2014.