USA’s largest LTE carrier, Verizon wireless has announced simplifying its 4G LTE data plans dubbed as S-M-L-XL, similar nomenclature as clothing industry. The carrier has also ended subsidized phone plans and two year contracts for new customers.

Following New data plans will be available from August 13, 2015

• Abolishing currently different line cost as per plans, Line cost has been fixed as $20 for smartphone, $10 for Tablet and $5 for wearable devices irrespective of data plan.
• Data plan Small for 1GB of shareable data will cost $30/month, this is the same price as currently price.
• Data plan Medium for 3GB of shareable data will cost $45/month, here Verizon has reduced price by $5 from its current price.
• Data plan Large for 6GB of shareable data will cost $60/month, here again Verizon is reducing price by $10 from current price of $70
• Data plan X-Large for 12GB of shareable data will cost $80/month, here keeping the price same, free data allowance has been increased from currently 10GB to 12GB.

So if you are three in a family then your new monthly bill be 3x$20=$60 for three smartphones and $80 for data plan for 12 GB data to be shared among them, totaling $140 per month.

If we compare these new data plans of Verizon with T-Mobile’s Simple Choice family plans. Although family plans of T-Mobile’s don’t offer sharable data instead it offers fixed data.

For the same family of three members, Since T-Mobile offers unlimited data in its every family plan but it reduces speed after crossing fixed data at high LTE speed. If each member want to use 3GB data at LTE speed then  their total monthly bill comes at $130 and if they wish to use 5GB LTE data then total monthly bill increases marginally to $160 only.

The difference in monthly bill may not be big but even then before choosing the carrier, check the coverage and download speed in your area.

On the auspicious occasion of India’s 69th Independence day, BSNL has announced that the company will offer a Combo voucher as a promotional offer for their prepaid customers and this combo voucher will be available for 7 days only starting from 14 Aug 2015 in all telecom circles across the country.

The details of Combo voucher is detailed as below

• MRP of  Combo voucher : Rs 69
• Free talk time value (49T) : Rs 49
• Free SMS (59S) : 59 (any net/local/national)
• Free 3G data (69D) : 69MB
• Validity: 4 days

The details may be seen in below exclusive screenshot

This combo voucher would be giving more value than your spent money so don’t forget to grab the benefits of this promotional offer of BSNL on this Independence day.

USA: After offering free calling to Mexico and Canada by T-Mobile and then Sprint, now the nation’s second major carrier AT&T has taken a serious note of it and also started offering unlimited free calling and texting to Mexico and Canada for its own customers but this offer is not for all customers. It is a limited offer for a new data plan of 15GB costing $100 and 25GB data plan costing $175.

AT&T has also followed the trendsetter T-Mobile and made changes in its mobile share value data plans as per following.

The data plan of 1GB and 3GB have been eliminated and launched a new data plan of 2GB costing $30 a month, totaling $55 with access charge for your device.(T-Mobile offers 1GB data plan for $50 and 3GB data plan for $60)

The data plan offering 5GB has been eliminated and a new data plan of 6GB has been launched for $50 per month ($75 per month with access charge). (T-Mobile offers 5GB data plan for $70 a month)

The major change has been done in 10GB data plan in which free data allowance has been bumped up to 15GB at the same price of $100 per month ($115 per month with access charge). With this change, regular 15GB data plan costing $130 has been eliminated.

The price of  20GB data plan has been reduced by $10 and now it will cost just $140 a month ($155 per month).In addition to above competitive data plans, T-Mobile also offers a new family plan promotion that offers each customer unlimited voice, texting and 10 GB of data and includes a monthly price of $100 for two lines additional lines costs extra $20 per line. T-Mobile is also offering fourth line free of cost till Labor day (Sept 7, 2015) hence a family of four can get 10GB of LTE data for each family member for just $120 per month only.

The tirelessly competition, given by T-Mobile by their innovative ideas and attractive plans, is now giving benefits to customers of other carriers specially nation’s major carriers. If you remember, at a time (just two years ago) AT&T was offering 2GB data plan for $50 plus access charge $45 i.e. $90 per month and 15GB data plan for $160+$30=$190 per month. Now see the difference with today’s costings.

Reliance Communication has tried to shake the mobile data world with launch of limited time promotional offer of special Independence day data pack offering 69GB with 69 days validity on the occasion of celebrating happiness of 69th Independence day for its Rev. B WiPod devices (dongles)

The data pack is priced with a figure of Rs 1947, reminding the historical year in which India became an Independent country. This promotional offer is available on PAN India basis till 31 August, 2015.

The best part of this high data pack is that the user can carry forward the unused data beyond 69 days if they recharge with another data pack after 69 days.

This high bundled data pack is very useful for use for all members of a family. All members can share the data by connecting to single Wi-Pod device. You can buy a Wi-Pod device for Rs 1599 if you subscribe for a postpaid connection or you may buy it for Rs 1999 if you opt for prepaid connection.

The Wi-Pod device has following features

• Supports CDMA 800MHZ & Wi-Fi B/G/N
• Wi-Pod – Max download speed support 14.7Mbps
• Max 6 users can be connected over Wi-Fi
• Power Vault capacity – 2200mAh battery
• Micro SD slot

If you overlook this promotional offer, then you have to pay more for its regular data plans. RCOM offers regular 18GB data pack for Rs 1599 and it comes with validity of 90 days. 36GB data pack comes with validity of 180 days and is priced at Rs 2999.

Alternatively you may look for MTS MBlaze Ultra data plan of 18GB which comes with 90 days validity for a price of Rs 1599.

BSNL today announced to withdraw its popular data STV of Rs 56 which offers 256MB data, to be used in whole month of 30 days, in its East zone circles. This STV56 will not be available from 27 August 2015

In place of above data STV, BSNL customer can have a new data STV of slightly increased amount of data 300MB but they have to more double the price i.e. Rs 109. This price may vary within a range of plus or minus of Rs 3 in circles of east zones. The validity of this new STV is also 28 days only and it will be available from 27 August 2015 in east zone circles only.

BSNL is known for uniform tariff in its all telecom circles except some circle specific tariffs due to competition faced from other private mobile operators but this time BSNL customers across the country except east zone circles are enjoying 250MB data for just Rs 56 for 30 days while BSNL customers, in east zone, have to pay double the price.

What do you think on this strategic move of BSNL for increasing revenue !!

After experimenting in two telecom circles of north zone, now the BSNL have decided to launch a slew of new unlimited data STVs in all telecom circles of north zones as well as in south zones only.

Following three new data STVs priced at Rs 399, Rs 629 and Rs 2399 will be available in these circles from 27 August 2015.

The unlimited data STV of Rs 399 which offers unlimited data but customer will be able to use 2GB of data at higher speed and after crossing this limit, the download speed will be reduced to 80Kbps for rest of the validity period. Similarly other two data STV priced at Rs 629 and Rs 2399 will offer 3GB and 16GB at higher 3G speed respectively and after that the speed will be reduced.

Special note for customers of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh telecom circles is that the currently available unlimited data STV of Rs 241 and 351 will no longer be available from 27 August 2015 in their telecom circles.

Indirectly, BSNL have hiked MRP of 2GB unlimited data STV from Rs 351 to Rs 399 for customers in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh !!

State-run telecom PSU, BSNL today made an announcement that company is launching a special combo voucher as a limited period promotion for its prepaid subscribers, to celebrate the festival of Raksha Bandhan on PAN India basis starting from tomorrow for 7 days.

The new combo voucher will be available at MRP of Rs 269 but in some circle, the price may differ by plus or minus by Rs 3 and it will allow you to use 1GB of data and will also add talk time worth Rs 100 in your main account. The validity of Combo voucher is 18 days only.

Alternatively you may go for other way, you may load 1GB data STV, priced at MRP of Rs 155 and having validity of 22 days and  a top up voucher which offer talk time equivalent to MRP of the voucher.

Which way you will load your prepaid number ? Do share in comments below.

In a bid to improve profitability, Indian private telecom operators are either hiking the tariffs or withdrawing or reducing discounts and freebies from last one year.

Recently Airtel, Idea and Vodafone have rejigging their data plans and made them costly for their customers. Let us see their present data tariffs.

Airtel, the India’s largest telecom service provider have hiked the price of its all data packs by Rs 50 hence its 1GB data pack is now costing Rs 295 in place of earlier price of Rs 250. The data pack for 2GB now costs Rs 495 in place of Rs 450 but in some circles it offers 3GB instead of 2GB as a special offer at Rs 495.

The regular data pack of 3GB data pack costs Rs 695 in place of Rs 645. All these data packs have 28 days validity. The additional advantage in these pack is that wherever 4G services are available, customer will get 4G otherwise they will get 3G services.

Vodafone have also revised its data packs and its 1GB data pack now costs Rs 297 in Mumbai and 2GB data pack costs Rs 497, both comes with 28 days validity only.

Idea Cellular is offering 1GB 3G data pack at Rs 295 while 2GB data pack has price tag of Rs 495. Validity of both packs has 28 days.

Amid these costly data packs, if you look other operators, they still offer data pack at even cheaper rates like BSNL has 1.1GB data pack for Rs 198 only, Tata DoCoMo offers 1.5GB 3G data pack at Rs 289 and 2GB 3G data pack for Rs 325 in Maharashtra & Goa circle. These data packs also come with 28 days validity.

You can check that other small private operators are offering more data at lower prices as compared to these giants.

With these tariff hike, how much it impacted on your expenses on mobile usage? Do share in comments.

BSNL has surrendered one 800 Mhz CDMA carrier in Aandhra Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana circles resulting their CDMA customers may not be able to continue with their EVDO data services so to ease them, BSNL has decided to offer GSM data services as per following in these affected circles:-

All the affected prepaid or postpaid CDMA EVDO customers can get USB Type 3G Data Card (Dongle) of 3.6 Mbps from nearby BSNL CSC for absolutely free of cost if they surrender their EVDO data card at CSC

Postpaid EVDO Customers are being offered a promotional postpaid data plan with Fixed Monthly Charges (FMC) of Rs.750 in which they will get whopping 10 GB of 3G data for free with validity for six months. After the initial period of 6 months, the customers will be given the option to migrate to any of the existing regular data plan of his choice.

Prepaid EVDO Customers may choose any GSM data Plan/STVs, BSNL offers 90MB to 20GB data plan at affordable prices.

If customers want to retain their existing 10 digit CDMA Mobile Number then such affected customers may be migrated through MNP.

BSNL is generous in offering GSM data plan to their EVDO data card customers !!

BSNL has today announced to rationalizes its 3G data tariffs for all its prepaid customers and new tariffs will come in to effect from 1-10-2015 in its all telecom circles.

From 1-10-2015, BSNL prepaid customers will have one more option to choose a new 3 GB Data STV which will cost them Rs 444, the validity of this new STV will be 60 days.

BSNL is also bringing another new combo voucher at Rs 239 offering 1GB at 3G speed plus talk time of  worth Rs 100, this STV will have validity of 14 days only.

Data STV of Rs 78 and Rs 139 will no longer be available after 1-10-2015

The validity of existing prepaid data STVs of Rs 98 is going to be reduced from 16 days to 14 days, it offers 650 MB of data at 3G speed. Similarly the validity of 1GB data STV of Rs 155 has been reduced from 22 days to 20 days only.

BSNL have three annual data STVs at Rs 3299, Rs 2299 and Rs 1251 but these annual data will cost more from 1-10-2015 as their prices as been hiked as per below exclusive picture. A new annual data STV at Rs 4499 has been launched which will offer 30 GB to be consumed within 12 months.BSNL have also rationalized the data STVs bundled with mobile TV pack in which mobile TV services are provided by M/s Digivive Services Pvt Ltd. The data STV of Rs 211 has been withdrawn and in place of it, a new data STV has been launched at Rs 179 with all freebies as offered with earlier data STV, invariably the price of data STV has been reduced and validity of this new STV kept longer, 22 days.

Aircel today announced a new recharge coupon at Rs 175 in Kolkatta to celebrate the festival of Durga Puja in the city. The new recharge Rs 175 offers benefits of talk-time of worth Rs 100 for making all net calls plus 200 minutes of free calls from Aircel to Aircel numbers.

In addition to voice benefit, customer will also get free 250 local SMS and 500MB of 3G data which is quite enough to consume in 30 days by using social media apps and email checking on your smartphone.

Aircel has one more attractive combo pack at MRP of Rs 255 which offers 1GB of 3G data and 30000 seconds for free. It has validity of 28 days.

At the same time, state-run PSU BSNL has also launched a new combo voucher at Rs 239 which also offers free talk time of worth Rs 100 plus 1GB of 3G data and it will come with 14 days validity only.

As a comparison with this BSNL combo voucher, the Aircel recharge coupon of Rs 175 is fairly priced and also offer more benefits.

On the upcoming festival of Dussehra, BSNL have launched  a new 3G data STV of Rs 78 which will offer 1GB of 3G data for 5 days. Although currently a data STV of 1GB with validity of 5 days is available  at Rs 68 but BSNL is also going to revise its validity from 5 days to 3 days only. This is the second time when BSNL is revising validity of data STV of Rs 68 since April, 2015. Earlier it was having validity of 10 days.

These new revised tariff will be applicable from 20-10-2015 on PAN India basis.

Prior to 1-10-2015, BSNL was having a 3G data STV priced at Rs 78 but that were offering 450MB of data only for 12 days but BSNL have withdrawn this data STV. Now again BSNL is bringing new data STV priced at Rs 78 offering 1GB of data for 5 days.

Although BSNL is regularly offering full talk time at least once in a month but this time on the occasion of Dussehra, BSNL will offer you more talk value than its MRP on a new recharge voucher of Rs 890. Customers recharging with the Rs 890 recharge coupon, will get talk time of Rs 1000. This offer will be available for any 3 days in October so check out those 3 days in your area.

USA: To take on the rival Sprint, T-Mobile announced today that company is bringing back its most popular postpaid data plan #10Gigs4All as a promotion for limited time under which a family of four persons can get 10GB each totaling 40GB for just $120 per month only.

As per plan, two people can get up to 10 GB of LTE data each for $100 per month. Then, third line can be added for  just $20 extra and this third person will also get 10 GB of LTE data. The fourth line can be added for free and this fourth person will also get 10GB LTE data, hence a family or four persons get 10GB each for just $120 per month only.

T-Mobile’s close rival Sprint also offers 40GB shared data plan for $120 for four persons but the difference between two plans is that T-Mobile offer unlimited data plans i.e. T-Mobile offers 10GB data to each member at LTE speed and beyond this limit, download speed throttles but customers will get uninterrupted unlimited data without any extra charge while Sprint charges overage at the rate of $15 per 1GB as soon as customer cross 40GB data limit.

Other two major carriers AT&T and Verizon doesn’t have matching plan because their 40GB data plan costs $300 per month and $380 per month respectively hence in the 40GB tier plan, the real fight is between T-Mobile and Sprint and by this rivalry, customers are real beneficiaries.

At present T-Mobile has the best 40GB Data deal among all four carriers, subject to availability of 4G signal connectivity in your area. Choice is yours !!

T-Mobile has compared its new plan with other carriers as follows.Source [T-Mobile Newsroom]

BSNL today made two announcements by which the state run PSU will swell the profits by hike  of tariffs of STVs specially designed for night calling and special data packs for Mobile TV.

Starting 1 November, 2015, the price of night calling STVs are going to increase up to Rs 25 but the relief is that, BSNL will also credit talk time worth almost the same increased amount in your main balance.

The new MRP of STV29, STV35, STV59 and STV121 will be Rs 39, Rs 48, Rs 81 and Rs 146 respectively. With new MRP, customer will get usage value of Rs 9, Rs 11, Rs 20 and Rs 25 in their main balance respectively.

In another announcement, BSNL have rationalized the Mobile TV pack by which now validity of all four Mobile TV packs is going to reduced. Out of four, one Mobile TV pack from M/s Digivive will get 1GB of data in place of 450MB but its validity is going to be reduced drastically from 12 days to 5 days only. The MRPs of all four Mobile TV packs are unchanged.

Tata DoCoMo customers in Karnataka can enjoy fast paced 3G data at cheap rates on this festival of light, Diwali. They may use low cost data packs to share and celebrate the festive mood with their friends and family.

Starting tomorrow, Tata DoCoMo customers in Karnataka will be able to buy two special 3G data packs at thrilling prices. One of which, offering 3GB data for just Rs 255, the price at which most of other private mobile operator offers merely 1GB data pack.

Another data pack of  6GB is priced at Rs 445 only. The price of this pack will also thrill you because, other mobile operators offers almost half of data at this price range. These special data packs have validity of 30 days. This promotional offer is for just three days i.e. 5 to 7 November, 2015.

BSNL is now in the mood to encash the habit of more data usage of its prepaid customers that is why the PSU today announced an indirect hike in its some popular data STVs by reducing the validity of these STVs. The validity of STV17, STV39 and STV56 have been revised from 2, 6 and 30 days to 1,5 and 27 days respectively.

The free data allowance in data STV17 have been increased marginally from 90MB to 110 MB.

Along with these changes, BSNL has also announced launch of one new data STV for 150MB with a validity of 3 days for a price of Rs 29 but you may find price of this STV in the range of Rs 26 to Rs 33.

These revised tariff will be come in to effect from 1-12-2015 on PAN India basis.

Few days back , the ailing BSNL had surprisingly reported an operating profit of Rs 672 crore for the financial year 2015-16, as against operating loss of Rs 691 crore for last financial year 2014-15.

BSNL, India’s largest state run telecom service provider, is all set to one more hike of their data tariff which will certainly fetch more money from customer’s pocket.

Those who use data services on their prepaid mobile numbers, they are currently being charged at the rate of 2p/10KB and this rate is also applicable for additional data usage after consuming free data allowance in a data pack, if a customer has loaded data pack STV or Combo pack.

But now this rate is going to be increased from 2p/10KB to 3p/10KB starting from 15 December, 2015.

Most of the private operators are also charging 0.3p to 10p per 10KB viz Airtel charges 3p/10KB, Vodafone and MTNL charges 2p/10KB, RCOM charges 0.3p/10KB, Idea charges 4p/10KB while Tata DoCoMo and Aircel charges 10p/10KB.

BSNL has also announced a launch of new Data STV at price of Rs 3099 which will offer 15GB of high speed data plus unlimited voice calls on their own network and 500 minutes free for calls on other networks. It will come with validity of 30 days only.

It has also made three existing data STVs more costlier either by increasing price, or reducing free data allowance. Like its data STV of Rs 821 will now offer 6GB free data in place of existing 7GB data. The price of data STV of Rs 1011 has been increased from Rs 1011 to Rs 1099 and free data has been reduced from 10GB to 9GB but its validity has been increased from 30 days to 60 days.

BSNL has given most benefit in its data STV of Rs 1949 in which free data allowance has been increased from 20GB to 21GB and its validity has also been extended from 60 days to 90 days.

Most of the mobile operator including BSNL don’t inform about hike of their tariffs so keep visiting this blog for update on tariffs.

India’s largest private telecom service provider Bharti Airtel announced launch of special mobile internet data packs for its prepaid customers in Delhi and Mumbai, which will allow them to enjoy data without worrying about validity of their plans.

“Today, we are proud to launch India’s first unrestricted validity data plans  which give our prepaid customers the flexibility to enjoy mobile internet services without worrying about any validity restrictions,” Bharti Airtel Director, Market Operations Ajai Puri said in a statement.

As per information, a data pack of 35MB will cost Rs 24, data pack of 75MB will cost Rs 51 and a little more data pack of 110MB will cost Rs 74. All these data pack will have unlimited validity, although the cost is high in comparison to regular data packs but the feature of unlimited validity costs more.

Airtel offers data pack of 150MB for just Rs 49 but it has validity of 4 days only. The data pack of 200MB costs Rs 67 but it comes with validity of 10 days only.

Idea is promoting its Easy Share plan on Television as well as on all other media. Actually Idea’s Easy Share plans are exclusive designed and priced for sharing and Idea lets you actually transfer the Internet data from one mobile to another mobile number. Similarly Airtel’s Family Share service (It is not the myFamily Plan) also allows their preapaid customer to share data from the Owner’s data pack.

Let us compare Idea EasyShare Plans with Airtel’s Family Share service.

1.      Airtel allows its prepaid customers to share their 3G/4G data packs and it doesn’t allow to share 2G data packs while Idea allows to share 2G/3G data packs, Idea have launched its 4G services in 75 towns in 4 Telecom service areas of Andhra Pradesh & Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu but Idea customers can’t share their 4G data.

2.      Airtel allows sharing data among maximum 5 members i.e. one customer can add four other members and then they can share data pack of the owner. Airtel users can share regular data allowance from a regular data packs like Airtel’s 1GB data pack costs Rs 259 or 2GB data pack costs Rs 459 in Delhi while Idea have exclusive Easy share plans which are basically combo plans, bundled with talk, SMS and data.

Idea offers to actually transfer the data in segment of 100MB, 150MB and 250MB to another Idea number at nominal fee of Rs1, 2 and 3 respectively. Idea user can also transfer talk time as well SMS from these combo Easy Share plan while Airtel allows to share data only.

3.      Idea’s Easy share plan starts Rs 158 to Rs 958 for prepaid users. The details are given in below table.

Idea have Easy Share plan for both prepaid and postpaid plan customers while Airtel’s Family Share plan is for prepaid only. For Airtel’s postpaid customers, Airtel offers myPlan for Family.

Airtel’s myPlan Family Postpaid Plans has three plans with monthly rental of Rs 799, Rs 999 and Rs 1599. Customers can design their postpaid plan by selecting free packs. Customers can choose 35, 50 and 90 free myPacks in Rs 799, Rs 999 and Rs 1599 plans respectively.

Airtel has seven types of free packs like 135MB 3G data, 250MB 2G data, 100 min local, 75 min STD, 200 SMS, International calling 5 min, outgoing roaming 40 min. Customers. Customers can choose any one of them once or more times. Airtel allows to add up to 5 members with additional rental of Rs 99 and they can share the freebies of the main plan.

Vodafone also has postpaid RED plans for monthly rental of Rs 699, Rs 899, Rs 1299 and Rs 1599 for sharing data, talktime and SMSs from the bundled freebies of these plans. It allows addition of new member up to maximum 5 with additional cost of Rs 99.

Idea allows its Easy Share post paid plan customers to add up to 9 members with extra cost of Rs 99.

All these three operators also offer unlimited free calling within the group members. A comparative table is shown below.

Out of all three above operators, Idea is the only one which allows you to actually transfer the data otherwise remaining two operator allows to share data from main account of owner.

After successful rollout of 4G LTE network in all southern telecom circles, Idea Cellular has launched a new 4G data pack priced at Rs 97 having validity of two days only in Kerala circle.

The regular 1GB 4G data plan is priced at Rs 249 and have validity of 28 days. As a promotion for a limited period offer, Idea is also offering extra 1GB data on this data pack hence at present customer gets 2GB 4G data for Rs 249 but customer have to use this extra 1GB data on Idea’s 4G network only.

Idea don’t have 4G network everywhere in Kerala therefore Idea customer gets 3G data network wherever 4G network is not available and therefore they get 3G download speeds. Here it would be worth to see whether Idea’s this data pack of Rs 97 is comparable with BSNL which offer affordable data packs.

BSNL have three 3G data packs at Rs 155 offering 1GB with validity of 20 days, at Rs 78 offering 1GB with validity of 5 days and at Rs 68 offering 1GB with validity of 3 days.

The download speed in Idea’s 4G network is around 30 Mbps and with this ultra-fast high speed, 1GB data may be consumed within few hours so before shopping these data packs, set your priorities and requirements. Otherwise you will feel, that validity of 2 days of Idea’s data pack is quite long.