While Reliance Jio and Airtel are perhaps bending over backwards in order to head up the ultra-high speed 4G market, BSNL is struggling really hard to rekindle its otherwise diminishing existence! With brilliant technological innovations, however, BSNL is at square one and drawing in disruptions in the telecom market.
Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha officially rolled out the long-anticipated Internet telephony service by BSNL, dubbed as Wings. State-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is going for jugulars by launching disruptive Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), that will allow BSNL subscribers to make voice and video calls to any number. All that the user is going to need is the Internet and an app.
Reportedly, the app-based Wings would be available from July 25.
The Inception of BSNL Wings!
Back in 2015, BSNL pitched in to consolidate landline calling features into their mobile network. This meant that the users with landline connections can now utilize features such as free night calling, on their mobile phones as well.
The whole process will also enable their customers to make landline calls from mobile and vice-versa and, at the same time, take advantage of value-added services on both platforms and more.
Confirming those features in 2015, BSNL Chairman and MD Anupam Shrivastava, claimed that BSNL customers need to link their landline and mobile accounts, to receive the benefits. Not that BSNL hasn’t gone limits to cater to the customer base already, BSNL has also introduced free roaming plans in order to attract new customers into their platform.
Wings as the July Headliner!
BSNL had been testing this service since 2015, and now the full-fledged service is here!
Wings, which enables communication to any telco’s network, is a strategic plan to take a dig at arch-rivals like, Reliance’s JioChat as well as over-the-top (OTT) apps such as WhatsApp, Hike, Viber, WeChat and Facebook Messenger.
Customers have to activate the service (one time in life), which allows unlimited local and national voice calls comes at a price of Rs 1,099 for a year.
According to top officials from the company, BSNL customers can avail this service either by registering online or through 700 customers service centres (CSC) which across the country will facilitate connections. In addition to all those means, a franchise network of more than 6 lakh retailers is also rolled out.
BSNL Wings Enters the Battle Zone!
Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone and Idea Cellular were offering 4G services, expect from one, state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). Given the telecom space of the country and the number of subscriber base, this telecom operator somehow failed to keep up with the consumer expectations.
In the past few years, the state-owned telco had slipped into losses and was taken into the task by having to justify state support.
The Ambani-owned company disrupted the telecom space with its tariff plans and VoLTE services. Bharti Airtel invested heavily in improvising its infrastructure to turn in the best services to its customers. Vodafone and Idea also marked a strong presence in the 4G space. If all these weren’t enough to belittle BSNL, all three operators had their networks facilitate 4G VoLTE technology. Bad news, BSNL does not really have an LTE service as of now.
However, by launching this new service before Jio, BSNL has technically taken over Jio. What remains to be gauged is, the winner of the Telecom Battle, and that will be known once both telecom operators launch a full-fledged account of their service.
Again, since the hypothetical battlefield here isn’t limited to just Telecom Players, BSNL with Wings has now openly challenged Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, and other messenger apps that provide SIM-less calling features. Comparatively, Wings is providing more options than all the OTT apps.
As a small setback, BSNL and Jio’s plans to offer Voice over Internet have been opposed by its incumbents since this poses a threat to the profits gained via voice calls. However, this doesn’t four-flush the fact – Given these aggressive developments, it’s not some yarn-in-potboiler that BSNL is here for some serious competition!
