The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Brickbats for BSNL after scheme revision

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Friday, Aug 01, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Brickbats for BSNL after scheme revision

M. Dinesh Varma

CHENNAI: When BSNL Chennai Telephones recently revised its “Friends and Family” scheme, it expected bouquets from subscribers all around. Instead, the scheme is getting brickbats from a section of mobile users.

The popular scheme, which allows users to talk to two designated numbers (a family member and a friend) at dirt cheap tariffs, was previously confined to one BSNL landline and one CellOne number in the Tamil Nadu circle. Recently, BSNL stretched the scheme’s ambit to allow the user to opt for the landline-mobile number combine or two mobile numbers, any of which could be outside Tamil Nadu. The mobile STD call charges were fixed at 60 paise per minute — half the regular STD rates — though as a tradeoff, BSNL pushed up the local call charges under the scheme from 10 paise to 20 paise a minute.

While a section of users who do have a friend or family member on their regular calling list outside the State are celebrating, many pre-paid users who either avoid making STD calls or do not have a person outside the State to nominate under the scheme are crying foul. “Why would I burn talk value by making STD calls? Now, I have to pay double the tariff for conversing with the local numbers I had nominated under the scheme,” said T. Sadagopan, consumer activist, who has a prepaid CellOne connection.

The middle ground that a senior BSNL official agreed with would have been to keep the modified scheme optional and allowing those who wished to retain two local numbers to do so at the 10 paise per minute tariff.

Mr. Sadagopan complained that BSNL had revised its SMS costs from 60 paise to 80 paise a message without notice, making CellOne’s SMS charges among the highest. He alleged that the revision, timed before the conclusion of the six months after the launch of a scheme, is out of step with the guideline prescribed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

The activist had migrated to the “Gold” package that was rolled out by BSNL along with “Silver” and “Platinum” schemes a few months ago. The USP of these schemes was the low tariffs offered. The “Gold” package, for instance, allowed users to make BSNL-BSNL calls at 40 paise a minute and BSNL-other network calls at 50 paise, while SMS costs were pegged at 60 paise a message. The revision has considerably weakened the appeal of these packages, he said.

However, a Chennai Telephones official said the packages were launched as limited period offers (three months). Even after these packages gave way to newer schemes, their original tariff structures have been retained.

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