Incumbent telecom operators such as Vodafone, Airtel and Idea Cellular are known for offering circle-specific and user-specific tariff plans. Vodafone India today silently introduced the Rs 549 and Rs 799 prepaid tariff plans for its users in Haryana, Maharashtra & Goa, Mumbai, Rajasthan, UP West circles. Notably, the same tariff plans were introduced in Gujarat and Karnataka circles a while back. And it's good to see Vodafone expanding the availability of the plans. The Rs 549 tariff plan from Vodafone gives 3.5GB data per day, while the Rs 799 prepaid tariff plan provides 4.5GB data per day. Both the plans come with a validity period of 28 days. However, the new five circles don't come with similar benefits. In a couple of circles, Vodafone is not offering SMS benefits, which is the reason why I mentioned that these operators are well-known for segmented tariff plans.
In Mumbai and Rajasthan circles, the Rs 549 and Rs 799 prepaid tariff plans don't offer any SMS benefits, while in other five circles Haryana, Maharashtra & Goa, UP West, Gujarat and Karnataka, the same plans offer 100 SMS per day for the validity period. Also, these plans provide unlimited voice calls even on roaming, but they're limited to just 250 minutes per day and 1000 minutes per week. Also, Vodafone allows you to make calls to only 300 unique numbers during the validity period.
With these two plans, Vodafone India is going against Reliance Jio's Rs 509 and Rs 799 prepaid tariff plans valid on the pan India basis. With the Rs 509 plan, Jio is providing an insane 4GB data per day, while the Rs 799 plan gives 5GB data per day. Vodafone is slightly short of Jio's offering, but the fact that Vodafone managed to come close has surprised many out there.
In fact, Airtel is not even offering these benefits, which is another point worth mentioning. Every time, Airtel was the first incumbent operator to match Reliance Jio's offerings, followed by Vodafone and Idea Cellular. However, for a change, Vodafone has left Airtel behind and killed the competition. Nevertheless, we're expecting Airtel to make a change to these plans next week to stay in-line with the competition.
Also, Vodafone might start offering Rs 549 and Rs 799 prepaid tariff plan on a pan India basis very soon.
