To catch up on the FIFA season, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has also rolled out a new STV offer like other telcos. The new plan by BSNL which is valid from June 14 to July 15, exactly till the time of FIFA World Cup, comes at the price of Rs 149. The promotional FIFA World Cup Special Data STV 149 will come with impressive benefits of 4GB daily data for a validity period of 28 days. However, being a FIFA promotional plan and due to the high competition, BSNL has introduced the plan for a period of 31 days. The only thing which the users should note is that the plan is not valid for Mumbai and Delhi circle. Except these two, the plan is up for grabs in all circles of the country.
Having said that, BSNL will not be offering any voice calling or SMS benefits with this plan because it's being introduced as a Data STV only. BSNL has this knack of introducing tariff plans on the occasion of a big sporting event. Back in April, the state-run telco introduced a tariff plan of Rs 248, under which it offered a whopping 3GB data per day for 51 days, and now, it introduced this Rs 149 prepaid plan.
Sadly, BSNL launched this plan only for its prepaid customers and not for postpaid users. BSNL prepaid users can start recharging this plan starting tomorrow through BSNL portal or any other recharge portal.
This move from BSNL comes after the new additional 1.5GB data per day offer from Reliance Jio. The Mukesh Ambani-owned telco started offering 1.5GB data per day extra on top of its every prepaid plan. For example, Jio's Rs 149 prepaid plan gives 3GB data per day now, but only until June 30. However, Jio's plan also offers unlimited voice calls and 100 SMS per day for the entire validity period, while BSNL's plan doesn't come with any such benefits.
So BSNL has countered Reliance Jio and other private telcos in the prepaid segment and it will be interesting to see how incumbent telcos such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular react to these new offers from Jio and BSNL.