As always, New Year and New Year's eve are marked as ‘blackout day’ for every operator in the country. On these days, the service providers do not allow free or concessional voice calls/ SMS offered by them and users will have to pay premium rate for every SMS sent. This new year, BSNL has come up with a Special Tariff Voucher to be used during the black out days for its subscribers.
The New Year Festive Promotional SMS STV for Blackout Days offer 130 Local/STD SMS to any network on blackout days of Dec 31st and Jan 1st. The STV is priced between Rs 21-24 depending on circle and is available as promotional offer on PAN India basis.
| STV (in Rs.) | Details of STV | Validity |
| Rs.21(+/-Rs.3) for KRL,KTK,AP & North Zone Circles; Rs.22 for TN, CHTD & East Zone Circles; Rs.24 for West Zone Circles. *Do check with customer care
| 130 SMS (Local/STD) any net on blackout day | 2 days (i.e, 31/12/2015 and 01/01/2016) |
Blackout days were introduced by TRAI to help operators deal with network congestion and heavy network traffic on festive days. This was back in the days when SMS was popular. Now most users have moved to WhatsApp and Facebook to send colorful New Year greetings. Even after operators SMS revenue took a down hill, they still continue the Blackout Days regime. This is a welcome move from BSNL to introduce black out day specific STV for its subscribers.
