New BSNL Rs. 171 prepaid plan offers 60GB data and unlimited calls

State-run telecom operator BSNL has come up with a new prepaid plan. This new tariff plan is priced at Rs. 171 and is meant to compete with the affordable prepaid plans from other telecom operators such as Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance Jio.

The new Rs. 171 prepaid plan from BSNL offers unlimited voice calls and 2GB of data per day. This plan also offers 100 SMS free per day. It has a validity of 30 days, which accounts to 60GB of data per day. Notably, BSNL doesn't provide 4G data, so this plan offers 3G data, which is a major downside.

In addition to the Rs. 171 prepaid plan, the telecom operator has also introduced another plan priced at Rs. 499. This is a postpaid plan offering 45GB of 3G data per month, unlimited voice calls and 100 free SMS per day. This plan is said to offer unlimited local, STD and national roaming calls. After exhausting the 45GB of data limit, the speed is said to drop to 40kbps.

Competition with Jio

With the new Rs. 171 prepaid plan, it looks like BSNL intends to compete against the Rs. 149 prepaid plan from Reliance Jio. Notably, the Jio plan offers 1.5GB of data per day for a validity of 28 days. The prepaid plan also offers 100 SMS per day and unlimited voice calling benefits. Besides these benefits, the Jio plan also provides access to the Jio suite of apps. Likewise, the Rs. 499 plan from BSNL is said to rival the Rs. 509 plan offered by Jio.

Lately, MTNL too offered a prepaid plan at the same pricing of Rs. 171. This plan offers 100 free SMS per day and unlimited voice calling. Also, it provides 1.5GB of data for 28 days just like the Jio prepaid plan mentioned above.

BSNL is aggressively bringing new plans

With the increasing competition in the telecom space, BSNL has been revamping its existing plans. Also, the telco is coming up with new tariff plans as well to retain the subscribers. In addition to bringing a lot of changes in the GSM prepaid segment, the telco has also brought in changes in the broadband internet segment. This started happening after the launch of the Reliance Jio GigaFiber broadband FTTH service.