With TRAI deciding to reduce ceiling price for national roaming calls and SMS that telecom operators can charge subscribers while they are in roaming, private telecom operators quickly grabbed the market by launching attractive roaming plans. Vodafone India along with Bharti Airtel launched new roaming plans at Rs 5 per day offering free incoming calls on national roaming. With private operators eying on the frequently traveling customers with attractive roaming plans, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) bit late but still standing up to the competition by offering new roaming plans for its prepaid and postpaid customers across India.
BSNL new Roaming Plans (Prepaid and Postpaid)
BSNL now offering two new roaming plans for both prepaid and postpaid customers with free incoming calls on national roaming and reduced outgoing calls rates while on roaming. For prepaid customers with new Rs 5 STV roaming plan, they get free incoming calls while on roaming along with all outgoing calls (Local/STD) at 1.5 paisa per second for a validity of 1 day. With Rs 69 STV roaming plan customers will get free incoming calls while on roaming along with all outgoing calls (Local/STD) at 1.5 paisa per second for a validity of 30days.
For postpaid customers BSNL has introduced Roaming Tariff Plan and Free Roaming-Tariff Plan-FR offering free incoming calls while on roaming and reduced outgoing calls. Roaming Tariff Plan at Rs 145 per month offers postpaid customers with 1.2 paisa per second for all incoming calls along with outgoing STD on-net and off-net calls also at 1.2 paisa per second and outgoing local on-net and off-net calls at 1.15 paisa per second. For this plan the voice calls has 1 second pulse rate.
With Free Roaming-Tariff Plan-FR for Rs 149 per month subscribers will get free incoming calls while on national roaming along with outgoing STD on-net and off-net calls also at 1.50 paisa per second and outgoing local on-net and off-net calls at Rs 1 per second. For this plan the voice calls has 60 second pulse rate.
MTNL new Roaming Plans ( Prepaid and Postpaid)
MTNL offering four new roaming plans for prepaid customers and two new roaming plans for postpaid customers with free incoming calls on national roaming and reduced outgoing calls rates while on roaming.
With Two day roaming plan 9 (RS 9), prepaid customers will get free incoming calls while on roaming along with all outgoing local and STD calls at 3 paisa per 2 seconds for two days. With Roaming Plan 75 (Rs 75) customers will get the all the benefits of above Two day roaming plan 9 with a validity of 30 days. With Roaming Tariff Plan (RTP) which is charged at Rs 89 customers get unlimited free incoming calls in maharashtra and Goa and Rs 0.75 per minute in rest of India with a validity of 180 days. All outgoing local calls are charged with Rs 0.90 per minute and outgoing STD calls are charged with Rs 1.40 per minute. With Roaming Free Incoming Plan (RTP-FR) which is charged at Rs 310 customers get free incoming calls while on roaming with a validity of 180 days and all the outgoing voice call tariff rates as per Roaming Tariff Plan.
For postpaid customers MTNL is offering monthly Rs 500 Roaming Tariff plan- Fixed rate which offers customer free incoming calls while on roaming. Another Roaming Tariff Plan for monthly Rs 125 provides subscribers with all incoming calls at 75 paisa per minute.