Vodafone Revises Its One Year Prepaid Plan to Match Reliance Jio

Vodafone’s annual plan is priced at Rs 1,699 which is now offering more data per day than Airtel.

With mobile data plans now costing less than $10 (Rs 70 approx) per GB, these are good times if you’re a mobile subscriber in the country.

While most people would attribute this change to Reliance Jio, for changing the landscape of telecom sector once and for all, you’ve got to commend the competition, trying to stay in touch with the disrupter, that too by paying a big price.

And keeping that in focus, Vodafone has reportedly made changes to its annual prepaid plan which is priced at Rs 1,699. Other two telcos, Reliance Jio and Airtel also offer a similar plan, costing the same price, but the difference is how much data can you consume in a day?

The latest revision in plan from Vodafone makes sure it’s at par with Reliance Jio, not only in terms of the cost of the plan but also what the telco is offering for the money.

So, if you’re a Vodafone user, and planning to get the Rs 1,699 annual prepaid plan then you’ll get 1.5GB data per day (earlier you were getting 1GB) to consume for a period of 365 days, which is the validity of the said plan.

The change in Vodafone’s plan comes few weeks after Airtel revised its own plan of Rs 1,699, which is now giving 1.4GB data per day, for the same validity period. Now, compare these two plans with Reliance Jio’s and you can see the effect of the latter on the both the formers.

Interestingly, four months back, both Vodafone and Airtel were offering 1GB data per day on their annual prepaid plan. But with increasing competition, they’ve had to increase the data limit for the user.

So, while Vodafone has managed to catch up with Jio’s annual plan, Airtel’s changes mean that you’re still getting 100MB data less than the other two telcos.

Should You Go for It?

If you look at the fine print, in terms of the money you end up saving or spending, the annual plans end up forcing you to put in more money. How’s that? Let’s say you go for Jio’s Rs 1,699 plan for 12 months, now when you calculate it comes to around Rs 141.5 per month.

Now if you compare it with the Rs 399 plan (deduct Rs 50 for the discount vouchers the telco is doling out), the plan works out to around Rs 116 per month. Basically, the annual plan, offering the same amount of data per day, costs you more than a regular three-month plan.

Also, it is worth noting the Rs 1,699 plan is a prepaid scheme, which means investing in a 12-month plan, at least for basic users, doesn’t sound like a wise idea to us.