Telecom wars continued to grab the headlines this week, with state-run BSNL in the news, along with private telcos Airtel and Reliance Jio. BSNL started off the week by introducing a Rs. 144 New Plan Voucher that offers free voice calls (local as well as STD) to all operators for a period of 30 days. However, the BSNL Rs. 144 voucher has a ‘fair usage policy’ of 30 minute per day when it comes to calling non-BSNL networks.
The week ended with more BSNL news, as the telco took Reliance Jio head on by introducing a new mobile data plan. Under the new Rs. 291 BSNL plan, a customer will get four times more data at 8GB with a validity of 28 days against 2GB earlier. "With these offers BSNL is now offering data at the rate of Rs. 36 per GB which is one of the lowest in the Industry," BSNL said. "These offers will be valid from February 6, 2017, on Pan India basis," BSNL Board Director for Consumer Mobility RK Mittal said.
While telcos like BSNL continue to respond to Reliance Jio’s moves, there’s mixed news for the new kind on the block. A new report from Credit Suisse claims that while Reliance Jio enjoys the best network coverage among all telcos, its 4G speed trails behind its competitor Airtel. "Our conclusion is that Reliance Jio's network coverage is significantly ahead of the other operators. Reliance Jio has good coverage in 80 percent plus of cities surveyed, compared to less than 30 percent for the others," the report said.
According to the report, Airtel 4G offers the best 4G speeds among the other competitors in India. The download speed of Airtel is at 12Mbps; while Reliance Jio, Vodafone, and Idea all come a close second with 7-8Mbps download speeds.
Talking about the war between Reliance Jio and Airtel, the former has asked telecom regulator TRAI to "impose highest penalty" on the latter, accusing India’s largest telco of grossly exaggerating the value of data in a promotional offer, and giving misleading tariff ads.
Reliance Jio has shot-off a letter to the telecom regulator alleging that in so far as the advertisements issued by Airtel for prepaid and postpaid tariff packs are concerned, the unlimited calls and free data being offered by Airtel is in "gross violation of extant telecommunication laws". Reliance Jio has further charged Airtel of misrepresenting the benefits as free unlimited calls without indicating the applicability of Fair Usage Policy (FUP). Reliance Jio alleged that the free calls under Airtel's Special Tariff Voucher 345 were not really unlimited as Airtel has implemented a FUP of 300 minutes/day or 1,200 minutes/week, post which all calls are chargeable.
Meanwhile in the United States, a legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives which among other things, calls for more than doubling the minimum salary of H-1B visa holders to $130,000 (roughly Rs. 89 lakhs). The move would make make it difficult for firms to use the programme to replace American employees with foreign workers, including from India, on H-1B visa.
The week ended with more BSNL news, as the telco took Reliance Jio head on by introducing a new mobile data plan. Under the new Rs. 291 BSNL plan, a customer will get four times more data at 8GB with a validity of 28 days against 2GB earlier. "With these offers BSNL is now offering data at the rate of Rs. 36 per GB which is one of the lowest in the Industry," BSNL said. "These offers will be valid from February 6, 2017, on Pan India basis," BSNL Board Director for Consumer Mobility RK Mittal said.
While telcos like BSNL continue to respond to Reliance Jio’s moves, there’s mixed news for the new kind on the block. A new report from Credit Suisse claims that while Reliance Jio enjoys the best network coverage among all telcos, its 4G speed trails behind its competitor Airtel. "Our conclusion is that Reliance Jio's network coverage is significantly ahead of the other operators. Reliance Jio has good coverage in 80 percent plus of cities surveyed, compared to less than 30 percent for the others," the report said.
According to the report, Airtel 4G offers the best 4G speeds among the other competitors in India. The download speed of Airtel is at 12Mbps; while Reliance Jio, Vodafone, and Idea all come a close second with 7-8Mbps download speeds.
Talking about the war between Reliance Jio and Airtel, the former has asked telecom regulator TRAI to "impose highest penalty" on the latter, accusing India’s largest telco of grossly exaggerating the value of data in a promotional offer, and giving misleading tariff ads.
Reliance Jio has shot-off a letter to the telecom regulator alleging that in so far as the advertisements issued by Airtel for prepaid and postpaid tariff packs are concerned, the unlimited calls and free data being offered by Airtel is in "gross violation of extant telecommunication laws". Reliance Jio has further charged Airtel of misrepresenting the benefits as free unlimited calls without indicating the applicability of Fair Usage Policy (FUP). Reliance Jio alleged that the free calls under Airtel's Special Tariff Voucher 345 were not really unlimited as Airtel has implemented a FUP of 300 minutes/day or 1,200 minutes/week, post which all calls are chargeable.
Meanwhile in the United States, a legislation was introduced in the House of Representatives which among other things, calls for more than doubling the minimum salary of H-1B visa holders to $130,000 (roughly Rs. 89 lakhs). The move would make make it difficult for firms to use the programme to replace American employees with foreign workers, including from India, on H-1B visa.
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