Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited announced on Thursday a slew of offers which includes cut in rates of its services like mobile, landline, broadband, IPTV and VoIP.
"Most of the private mobile operators have reduced their call rates to Re 1 per minute. We have gone a step further by fixing the rate to 90 paise per minute from our Dolphin and Trump mobile phones. This will help us increase our customer base," MTNL Executive Director J Gopal told reporters in Mumbai.
MTNL had earlier reduced the call charges from Trump to MTNL landline from Rs 1.50 per minute to 90p per minute from January 1 this year. However from January 26, a flat rate of 90p per minute is applicable to calls to any local number of Mumbai across all operators.
It has also reduced call rate to MTNL Delhi. Call rates from Dolphin post-paid has been reduced from Rs 1.65 to as low as 30 paise per minute and calls to MTNL Delhi from Trump prepaid are 90 paise per minute against earlier Rs 2 per minute.
"We have a total 37 lakh subscriber base of which there are 14 lakh mobile subscribers. With these initiatives, we aim to add another 1.5 to 2 lakh subscribers by March-end," Gopal said.
To improve its service, the telecom major is adding seven and a half lakh switching capacity for mobile network to existing 13.25 lakh and 300 base transmission stations for radio network to its existing 512.
Company's other initiative include reduction in download charges of GPRS from 2p per kb to 1p kb for both pre-paid and post-paid customers. With effect from January 7, MTNL has started offering Combo Plans on landline services. In this plan the customers can get combination of landline, Broad Band, IPTV and VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol which helps in making ISD calls at cheaper rates) at lower rates.
Four such Combo Plans have been launched. Combo Broadband offers free 200 landline calls and 400 MB download in Rs 500 per month. Combo IPTV offers Landline with Broadband and IPTV services with 150 plus TV channels at Rs 500 per month.
Combo VoIP -- offers Landline, Broadband and VoIP with 100 free landline calls and 400 min of VoIP talk time in just Rs 400 per month, he said.
Combo Triple offers Landline, Broadband, VoIP and IPTV at Rs 750 only where the customers can get 400 MB free download, free over 150 TV channels and 400 min of free VoIP talktime.
Another important initiative which became effective from January 29 is a free Trump SIM card as a loyalty scheme for all its existing Dolphin, Trump, landline and Garuda customers. This offer has been introduced to reward the loyal MTNL customers and extend the existing relationship with customers. The free SIM card worth Rs 150 comes with a talk time of Rs 53 with a talktime validity of 10 days, he added.