Vodafone has gone ahead and announced a twofold rise in its PAYG (Pay As You Go) tariffs, but this hike in its mobile Internet rates is not as bad as it sounds. That’s because data plans which allow customers to consume a particular amount of data in exchange of a fixed amount have remained unaffected by this change.
PAYG tariffs for both 2G as well as 3G Internet users from Vodafone will now be 4 paise per 10KB. Prior to the change, customers were being charged 2 paise per 10KB. If you’re wondering, this applies to prepaid as well as postpaid customers of the second largest mobile network operator in India.
All regions from the country are included in this new Vodafone tariff change which is currently being rolled out in a phased manner. As reported by Digit, a Vodafone India spokesperson has asserted that the telecom operator still offers the lowest standard mobile internet charges in the industry for both prepaid and post-paid customers.
But the Vodafone representative in his statement has stopped short of mentioning a reason for this hike in the PAYG prices. Last year in October, Vodafone had slashed its 2G data rates by 80 percent in an attempt to lure more customers towards its mobile Internet services. This had brought its 2G data rates on PAYG mode on par with those of its 3G tariffs for the same.
Vodafone could benefit from this change a great deal considering the large market share it is holding right now in terms of mobile data usage in India.