BSNL gains from subscriber loss of telecos, Vi CEO throws light on the situation
In the past couple of months, all the private telecom service providers in India have revised their respective tariff. For those who are unknown about the scenario, Vodafone Idea, Airtel as well as Reliance Jio hiked the prices of their plans in July. The price hike was quite a thing for the common people in the country. While most of the subscribers of the above-mentioned telecos sticked to their telecom service providers, some switched to BSNL for its affordable plans.
Vodafone Idea’s CEO Akshaya Moondra has thrown some light on the situation and told that users were porting to BSNL from Vi as the tariff rates (in the former) were constant. However, the matter was not of grave concern as BSNL cannot offer competitive 4G speed across the country like its competitors. He also told that there are chances that BSNL gained customers of Jio as well as Bharti Airtel.
“One of the trends we have seen is that the port out to BSNL has generally increased from the pre-tariff increase levels and the reason for that is that they (BSNL) have not increased their tariffs so there is a fair amount of arbitrage,” said Moondra.
The CEO also pointed out that good coverage of 4G network is the aspect where BSNL might find it difficult to compete.
“Our expectation is that customers who are used to using good coverage and experience of 4G, probably the current offering of BSNL may not be to that extent and people who may have taken a quick decision in terms of the tariff actions may most likely come back,” added Moondra.
BSNL is currently working hard to roll out 4G infrastructure across the country while Vi is working to rollout 5G infrastructure in the near future. Time will tell whether BSNL will emerge as a new favourite among the masses for its affordability.