Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, (BSNL) the state-owned telecom operator was on a spree of launching new STVs, revising plans and shipping more and more benefit to the users for the sake of luring in more customers. The telco had also announced that it would focus more on consumer-centric offerings and would notch up its services. However, with this new update it seems that although the telco has walked two steps ahead, it has also taken a step back by announcing the withdrawal of selected STVs. Notably, the STVs in this list are all data based offerings, meaning that they do not come with any voice calling benefits.
Five Data Based STVs Withdrawn by BSNL
In the list of STVs which have been discontinued by BSNL, first is the COMBO 549 STV which offers 2GB data per day along with free PRBT for 60 days validity. Second, up is the COMBO 561 STV which offers 1GB data per day with free PRBT for 80 days validity. There are three more STVs by BSNL which have been discontinued in its latest move, and these include DATA 2798 which ships unlimited data with a FUP of 1GB per day and the post FUP speed of 40kbps. This STV used to come with 365 days validity. The other two discontinued offerings include the DATA 3998 and DATA 4498 which used to ship 1.5GB daily FUP data and 2GB daily FUP data respectively and both used to come with 365 days validity.
Long Term Data Only Plans Not Clicking with Subscribers
What’s worth noting is that most of the STVs which BSNL has discontinued are data-based and three out of the four are long term packs. This means that BSNL has likely failed to attract the attention of the consumers towards its long-term plans which are highly priced. The possible situation is that subscribers are ready to recharge their numbers multiple times a year, instead of committing to a single data-based plan for an entire year by paying a large amount upfront. Another reason might be that subscribers are instead considering plans which combine calling and data offerings along with more quirks like SMS to have an all-in-one solution at their disposal for their connectivity needs. Another crucial thing to note about the withdrawal of these STVs is that they will first be taken off the portfolio of BSNL in Tamil Nadu and Chennai circle, meaning that you might find these plans elsewhere, but they will not be available in Chennai and Tamil Nadu anymore.
A few weeks ago, BSNL had also reduced the validity of its Rs 666 plan from 129 days to 122 days. However, the BSNL is also offering 2.2GB of bonus data for its subscribers which translates into a large volume of total data for the BSNL consumers.