Due to the urge for survival, most of the pre-paid pricing plans from Indian telecom service providers have become less competitive.
In other means, telecom users are not getting any competitive edge while shifting to one of the rivals of their present telecom operator. The current pricing trend is good for the health of Indian telecom industry, but does not create happy connections to Indian mobile phone users who are ready to spend more for more quality.
Indian telecom operators are unable to play in the pricing front because most of the operators are offering the same quality of services. The reason for the poor demand for mobile number of portability (MNP) is the lack of significant difference in pricing. Ever since the partial exit of telecom operator such as Uninor, which played in the Sabse Sastha (the cost effective) market, rivals such as Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular could increase cellular tariffs.
TelecomLead.com is analyzing the recent pricing trends. Recently, some Indian telecom operators have threatened that they will increase the mobile tariffs if the government accepts the recent TRAI recommendations and goes ahead with the spectrum auction in 2015.
Top-up plans
The state-owned MTNL is offering full talk-time on Rs 100 and Rs 130 recharges, whereas the talk-time increases when a recharge of Rs 200 or more is done.
For a recharge of Rs 200 users will get a talk-time of Rs 205. The company offers Rs 310 talk-time for Rs 300 and Rs 520 for Rs 500. Users will get Rs 790, Rs 1,070 and Rs 2,400 on recharges of Rs 700, Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,200, respectively.
MTNL provides more talk-time in less price as compared to Idea cellular’s full talk-time offers.
The Aditya Birla group promoted Idea Cellular offers Rs 110 talk-time for Rs 110, Rs 150 talk-time for Rs 150, Rs 200 for 200, Rs 330 for 330 and Rs 2,500 for a recharge of Rs 2,500.
With these recharges, Idea also offers free missed call alert service free for 30 Days one time basis, (non auto-renewal).
Reliance GSM, promoted by Anil Ambano, also offers some full talk-time plans with some combo plans that offers both talk-time and internet usage data.
The company offers full talk-time offers for Rs 120, Rs 150, Rs 300, Rs 500, Rs 1000.
It also has extra talk-time plans that offer Rs 240 talk-time on recharge of Rs 220 and Rs 340 talk-time on Rs 310 recharge.
The combo packs from Reliance Communications include recharges of Rs 101 that offers Rs talk-time plus 100 MB 3G data and all local and STD calls at 40p/min. The pack has validity for only 10 days.
Reliance Communications is also offering another combo pack of Rs 296 that offers Rs 296 talk-time plus 300MB 3G data and all local and STD calls at 40p / min for 30 days. There is also a Rs 786 combo pack that offers core talk-time of Rs 850 plus 5 local / national SMS free for one day.
Aircel, a joint venture of Malaysia’s Maxis, is also not far behind as it offers extra talk-time plans for the users. It offers a talk-time of Rs 155 on recharge of Rs 150, Rs 325 for Rs 300 recharge, Rs 550 for Rs 500, Rs 825 for Rs 750 and Rs 1125 talk-time for Rs 1000 and Rs 1700 talk-time on a recharge of Rs 1500.
Bharti Airtel, promoted by Sunil Mittal, also offers full talk-time offers to its subscribers. Users get full talk-time on recharges of Rs 130, Rs 150, Rs 200, Rs 250, Rs 300, Rs 500.
For a recharge of Rs 1000, Rs 1500, Rs 2000 and Rs 3000 Airtel offers extra talk-time with Rs 1050, Rs 1580, Rs 2100 and Rs 3100.
BSNL does not offer full talk-time offers to its subscribers. Users get a talk-time of 17.80 on a recharge Rs 20. On paying Rs 50 users get a talk-time of 44.50.
BSNL users get a talk-time of 89 on recharge of Rs 100, whereas on recharge of Rs 200 users get talk-time 178. On paying Rs 500 user get talk-time of 445.
