Bpl Mobile Slices Pre-Paid Airtime Rate To Rs 1.99

BPL Mobile has slashed airtime rates for its pre-paid card --Mots -- to Rs 1.99 a minute from Rs 2.25 per minute. The company has also slashed the rentals for its regular subscribers by 25 per cent to Rs 295 bringing it on par with Orange, the other operator in Mumbai. The new tariffs will come into force from Monday.

The company has stated in a press release that the airtime rates have been lowered to attract new subscribers at the entry level and make the service more affordable.

BPL will also offer additional features like call holding, call waiting, call forwarding, and call conferencing on the pre-paid card. It will also continue with its other offerings such as number portability (which lets a subscriber keep the same number when shifting to a BPL Mobile post-paid subscription), Internet, e-mail, miHearmail, SMS based services like MiNews, miChat, miDate and miMessaging.

BPL Mobile is looking to expand the cellular market and attract new customer segments into the category of mobile telephony.

B P Singh, COO, BPL Mobile has said in the release, "Our key strength lies in recognising consumer needs and adapting our products and services to suit these needs. Through our feedback mechanism, we realised the need to lower entry cost and the requirement of individual segments for more value added service customised to their needs. The change in Mots will cater to these very needs in the market and we are looking forward to consolidate our position in the Mumbai market."

BPL has over seven lakh subscribers spread over 192 cities in the circles of Mumbai, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Goa. It has recently announced a mega merger with Birla AT&T Tata to create an entity worth $ 2.5 billion. The merger would cover about 51 per cent of the country's fixed line population.