Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has found a way to beat the affordable plans offered by Bharti Airtel, Reliance Jio, and Vodafone Idea. The state-run telco offers one benefit that neither of the other operators offers to the users going for a very affordable plan under Rs 100. This one benefit that I am talking about is a game-changer for almost everyone who wants to port their SIM from one company’s network to another. Still didn’t get it? Well, keep reading ahead.
BSNL Offers SMS Benefits, While Airtel, Jio, and Vi Doesn’t
BSNL offers users SMS benefits with low-end prepaid plans, which the other operators have deliberately stopped offering. Users going with a prepaid plan under Rs 100 from either of the private telecom operators won’t get any SMS benefits with their plan. This means that even if the users want to port to another network, they can’t because they cannot shoot the required text for the same.
The ‘STV_49’ from BSNL that costs only Rs 49 comes with 100 SMS benefits for 28 days. While these are not a ton of SMSes, it will still help the users in porting from one network to another if they want to. This is a clever way of hindering the customers’ wish of porting to another network by the private operators.
While any customer can go with a higher-priced plan and get the SMS benefits to send the porting request, it is highly unfair that they can’t do so with a low-end plan. On top of that, the private operators have also removed the SMS top-up plans from their offerings to ensure that these low paying customers don’t get to recharge with a cheap SMS top-up and port out of their network.
However, it is worth noting that select affordable plans from BSNL, including the Rs 99 and Rs 105 plans, don’t come with any SMS benefits either. Regardless, there is an even cheaper plan of Rs 29 from BSNL that comes for 5 days only but offers users 300 SMSes.
This is a clever move from the telcos’. But the thing is, it is not the way an operator should make the users stay on its network. The way to do that is by offering consistently good services, delivering what it promises, and pricing its plans reasonably as per the benefits offered. If a telco gets this right, it doesn’t need to fear a lot of users opting out of its network.
