Note: It’s been more than two years since I wrote this review. So, do read some recent reviews before you make any decisions. - pradeep
Being a customer of Excel - pre-paid mobile service of BSNL (Barath Sanchar Nigam Ltd.) for the past 5 months I have got good amount of information to present to you about the service. As I have also tried Airtel and Hutch for short periods of time, I have observed a lot of facts about these services. Ok, lets see through BSNL.
One thing is to be mentioned before we go into the details. BSNL has definitely succeeded in attracting masses by throwing very affordable tariff plans at them. What else can be stated to support this statement than Bsnl grabbing second spot in entire nations market share. And this happened within nine months since its launch in last august/september.
But as soon as the private operators realized the danger they responded by slashing prices to some extent and making some offers. As all the mobile service providers are forced to offer incoming calls free under TRAI (Telecom Regulation Authority of India) regulations, at this point I shall review various ups and downs of bsnl service.
Positives:
Coverage:
Undoubtedly they have the best coverage in india. Especially in rural areas and alongside National Highways and important rail routes. Whereever bsnl has its good-old landline exchanges it has built mobile towers and wherever it has towers already they put antennas for mobiles. So, not much investment was necessary and this helped them in creating extensive coverage.
Tariff:
Indeed it’s true that there was recent hike in bsnl excel tariff plan and competetive tariffs are offered by many other operators such as Airtel but there are still some benefits that bsnl gives.
STD calls: These are the calls that a subscriber makes to places outside his home state (Telecom circle - in their jargon). For these calls bsnl doesn’t charge any airtime charges. And this is a major advantage for distances less than 500KM.
But for distances greater than 500 KM, other providers offer equal or sometimes lesser prices if the call is made to a location which is under their coverage area.
Recharge currency:
The available denominations being almost same we need to look into the talk value that we get from them.
let’s compare bsnl with Airtel.
Denomination(Rs) talkvalue(Rs) validity(days)
Airtel 325 150 30
BSNL 300 175 30
Airtel 525 350 30
BSNL 500 365 45
Airtel 1050 850 60
BSNL 1000 825 60
note: These are only one set of tariffs and are applicable in karnataka.
Roaming: The charges in roaming are quite less as well compared to other providers.
Negatives:
Signal Availability:
This is a big problem for bsnl in cities especially in congested areas. Even if there is a bsnl tower nearby the signal level falls down drastically if one happens to be in closed rooms or lower floors of big buildings. This is purely because of the quality of equipment used by bsnl.
One has to run out of their houses to answer calls.Airtel and other private operators have significant advantage here.
Service and assistance:
Though the automated system serves good to findout balance amount, validity, etc. hardly we get people to speak to about specific problems. By chance if one gets through to a so called ’Customer Care Executive’, he will surely give an explanation but rarely a solution. For that matter the persons sitting over there doesn’t have the authority to do even simple tasks like call verification etc. (Sir, This is government office)
I had a funny experience when I visited my native place last month (a small town in Andhra Pradesh, where they have newly built a tower for mobile service but not provided it with battery back-up). whenver there was a power-cut for some time and then restored, I had to call them up and remind them to switch-on the tower. They forgot that there is a tower inside their building premises. Can we call it ’poor service’ or ’the freedom of customer’?
Roaming: Only regional roaming is provided for prepaid service whereas Airtel magic roaming plan covers more states if not whole country.
Availability Though they faced problems initially to cater the increasing demand for their SIM cards, Now they have overcome that and both the SIM cards and Recharge currency are available at many places.
Voice Quality The service suffers badly in this area. The quality of voice though depends of the signal availability, is sometimes not good even if the signal is full. One can experience echoing, buzzing and jarring sounds at times.
Call Clogging: Though this was a major problem until few weeks back especially between 8 and 11 PM, there is a considerable improvement in this area. But still good scope for improvement.
To finish it off, I won’t recommend you to go for bsnl if you stay in a city and/or if you live in fully closed places. Don’t get attracted by low tariffs. Check out the signal availabilily at your home and office/college in case you have a soft corner for bsnl.
If you are a person who travels most esp. by Road and Rail, beyond doubt bsnl is the best bet. Go for Post paid if you wish to have national roaming.
And also if you stay in small towns or rural areas, Don’t think twice you go for it and you’ll be happy doing so.
Ofcourse there is no other option in most of the rural areas.
Added on 22/05/2003
BSNL bangs again with slash in prices.
The war continues... BSNL tariff Vs other’s service
check out new tariff plan of bsnl mobile service at the following link.
https://bsnl.co.in/pressroom/celltariff_wtd.htm
Very cheap and no other service in this country is offering cheaper prices than these at present.