Reliance Jio has been hogging limelight ever since it went live with its commercial offerings and has probably changed the whole industry for the better, at least for the customers. As a consequence of Reliance Jio’s free services at the time of commencement of its services and attractive paid services now, other telecom operators like Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular have started to cut on tariffs which have, in turn, benefited the customers a lot. The latest player to join this bandwagon is BSNL. The state-owned telecom operator has recently gone full throttle with its three new plans namely its Dhil Khol Ke Bol STV349, Triple Ace STV333 and Nehle per Dehla STV385.
Quickly briefing out about these offers, The Dhil Khol Ke Bol plan costing Rs 349 will give you unlimited Local+STD calls in the home circle and 2GB data for 28 days. Whereas the Triple Ace offer costing Rs 333 will give you 3GB Mobile Data per day for 90 days which when compared to Jio’s Dhan Dhana Dhan offer and other offers from Airtel, Vodafone etc., offers much more internet but loses out on call benefits.
Lastly, there is Nehle per Dehla offer which costs Rs 385 will give you 2GB of mobile data per day along with free 3000 minutes for BSNL to BSNL calls and 180 minutes of off-the-internet calls per month (post which 20p/minute) with a validity of 71 days. Moreover, all the above-mentioned offers will bring down the internet speed to 80 Kbps once you have exhausted the daily limit of mobile data.
However, are these offers really up with other telecom operators like Airtel, Vodafone and even Reliance Jio. The benefits you get for the price is definitely attractive but is BSNL really up there in other factors such as Coverage, Download speed, Upload speed and others? Well, let’s break it down.
As per TRAI’s website, BSNL’s average 3G speed is 2.44 Mbps all across the country while the website failed to show any stats for 4G network. On the other hand, Reliance Jio tops the list with 4G speeds of 15.04 Mbps followed by Idea Cellular at 11.93 Mbps, Airtel at 10.69 Mbps and Vodafone at 8.13 Mbps.
The 3G speeds of these networks are as follows: – Vodafone – 3.96 Mbps, Airtel – 3.86Mbps, Idea – 3.68 Mbps. So based on these stats, BSNL is nowhere near to the top when we take 3G/4G speeds into consideration.
Let’s now jump to Upload speeds. Idea Cellular leads the chart here with 6.64 Mbps (4G), followed by Vodafone at 5.42 Mbps (4G), Airtel at 4.49 Mbps (4G) and Reliance Jio at 3.25 Mbps (4G). BSNL again failed to even show any presence in the 4G department. For the 3G upload speeds, Vodafone topped the list with 1.72 Mbps, followed by Idea at 1.57 Mbps, Airtel at 1.41 Mbps while BSNL again struggled here with 1.04 Mbps.
Now, you must be wondering BSNL might not be the best in network speed but given it is a state-owned operator, it should excel in the network coverage. Well, let’s find out.
Starting with Reliance Jio, the telecom operator does seem to have stuck back in this department i.e. the network coverage. Airtel, on the other hand, does offer an impressive coverage in 3G network but is still average when it comes to 4G. Surprisingly, Idea has more 4G coverage than 3G in India. Meanwhile, Vodafone her struggles with both 3G and 4G networks. BSNL, although, does have a commendable 3G coverage but has almost negligible coverage for 4G networks.
To conclude, although BSNL does offer a lot of lucrative offers, you will have to be careful with the network speeds and 4G coverage area. For that matter, other operators offer much better experience and Reliance Jio, especially, looks much more promising.