A STUDY ON 3G MOBILE DATA PLANS IN

KERALA
Flavy Jose
2nd Year B.Ed. Mathematics
Mount Carmel College of Teacher Education for Women, Kottayam
In this study, the investigator find that mobile connection providers in Kerala provide
different data plans, tariff plans and different offers to their customers. Among the service
providers BSNL provides more data at low cost compared to Idea and Airtel for limited and
unlimited plans.

A mobile phone is a portable telephone
that can make and receive calls over a
radio frequency carrier while the user is
moving within a telephone service area. In
1917, Finnish Inventor Eric Tigerstedt
filed a patent for a “pocket size
microphone”. The first handheld mobile
phone was demonstrated by John F
Mitchell and Martin Cooper of Motorola
in 1973using a hand set weighting c.4.4.lbs
(2 Kg). In 1983 the ‘DynaTAC 800x’ was
the first commercially available handheld
mobile phone.
In 1991, the second – generation (2G)
digital cellular technology was launched in
Finland by Radiolinja on the GSM
standard. Ten years later, in 2001, the third
– generation (3G) was launched Japan by
NTTDoCoMo on the WCDMA standard.
At first, mobile phone’s only function was
to provide people with a means to call and
be called any time without being
connected to any line. The modern form of
mobile phone is called “smart phone”.
Some functions of smart phones are:
Calling and texting purposes, Gaming and
entertainment purposes, Social media and
Internet browsing purposes, Time
checking purposes, Camera shooting
purposes, Reading and editing documents
Basic mobile phone and smart phones are
worked with the help of a mobile service
provider. A mobile service provider is a
company that offers transmission services
to users of wireless devices through radio
frequency signals. Some of major tele –
communication service providers in Kerala
are BSNL, IDEA Cellular, Vodafone,
Airtel etc. each service providers give
different data plans and offers.
Objectives
 To know the mobile data plans
provided by different service
providers in Kerala
 Compare the rate of mobile data
plans of different service providers
in Kerala
 To know which service provider
give more data in less cost
Methodology
First took three service providers in Kerala
circle. They are BSNL, IDEA & Airtel.
Then, visited the website of these service
providers and collect 3G data plan rates.
After compared the rate of 3G data plans
of these service providers and arrived to a
conclusion.
Data Analysis 200 MB 5 49
240 MB 6 59
Mobile internet data refers to the service
280 MB 7 69
data allotment for a personal cell phone or
360 MB 9 89
tablet, which includes a specific amount of
380 MB 9 94
usage time without using Wi-Fi. Each cell
430 MB 14 107
phone service provider calculates data
590 MB 14 178
services in a different manner.
500 MB 21 123
1024 kilobytes (K B) = 1 megabytes (M B) 600 MB 14 149
1024 megabytes (M B) = 1 gigabytes (G 800 MB 21 199
B) 1 GB 28 249
1 GB 28 255
BSNL 3G DATA PLAN 2 GB 28 349
3G Internet Free Validity In Price 2 GB 30 448
Data Usage Days 2 GB 2 145
20 MB 1 4 3 GB 30 646
110 MB 1 14 5 GB 30 848
150 MB 3 29 10 GB 30 1346
200 MB 5 40 20 GB 28 2499
250 MB 21 57 AIRTEL 3G DATA PLAN
1 GB 1 68
3G Internet Free Validity In Price
1 GB 5 78
Data Usage Days
650 MB 14 98
45 MB 1 1
1 GB 15 155
65 MB 2 17
2 GB 10 156
100 MB 2 24
1 GB 24 198
70 MB 30 27
1.2 GB 30 241
75 MB 30 29
2 GB 30 292
110 MB 28 44
3 GB 60 444
200 MB 5 49
10 GB 30 549
270 MB 7 67
5 GB 60 561
275 MB 7 91
6 GB 60 821
400 MB 11 99
21 GB 90 1949
1 GB 2 101
IDEA 3G DATA PLAN 550 MB 15 146
3G Internet Free Validity In Price 500 MB 28 148
Data Usage Days 600 MB 16 149
15 MB 1 5 500 MB 10 169
30 MB 1 8 550 MB 14 189
60 MB 2 15 800 MB 21 198
110 MB 2 29 625 MB 14 209
155 MB 4 39 650 MB 14 219
800 MB 21 255 service free data plan
1 GB 28 259 provider usage
1.25 GB 28 299 BSNL 650 MB 98
2 GB 28 359 Idea 600 MB 149
3 GB 28 459 Airtel 650 MB 219
2 GB 60 575 From the table we get service providers
10 GB 28 999 BSNL and Airtel give same data usage at
Rs.98 & Rs.219 respectively. From these
Number of valid days is one two we can conclude that BSNL has low
price rate for 650 MB. Now consider
day
BSNL & Idea
BSNL
BSNL
20 MB for Rs.4 then for Rs.1 we get 20 ÷
650 MB for RS.98. Then, 650 ÷ 98 =
4 = 5 𝑀𝐵
6.63 𝑀𝐵 for Rs.1
Idea
Idea
15 MB for Rs.5 then for Rs.1 we get 15 ÷
600 MB for Rs.149. Then, 600 ÷ 149 =
5 = 3 𝑀𝐵
4.02 𝑀𝐵 for Rs.1
Airtel
BSNL gives 6.63 MB for Rs.1 & Idea
45 MB for Rs.11 then for Rs.1 we get gives 4.02 MB for Rs.1. Comparing
45 ÷ 11 = 4.0909 ~ 4.1 𝑀𝐵 these we get BSNL gives high data for
Rs.1 for 14 days.
BSNL provides high data among the
three service providers that is; for Rs.1 Number of valid days is 30
we get 5 MB data for one day. days
Number of valid days is five Name of 3G internet Price of
days service free data plan
provider usage
Name of 3G internet Price of
BSNL 2 GB 292
service free usage plan
Idea 2 GB 448
provider
Airtel 2 GB 359
BSNL 200 MB 40
Idea 200 MB 49
Airtel 200 MB 49 From this table we get the three service
From the table it is clear that BSNL has providers BSNL, Idea, Airtel gives 2 GB
low rate. BSNL provides 200 MB for for 30 days at Rs.292, Rs.448, and Rs.359
Rs.40 for 5 days validity. respectively.

Number of valid days is 14 The smallest rate is given by BSNL, that

is; 2 GB data for Rs.292.
days
Name of 3G internet Price of 10 GB data for 30 days
validity
 Name of 3G internet Price of
service free data plan
provider usage
BSNL 10 GB 549
Idea 10 GB 1346
Airtel 10 GB 999
Comparing the data’s in the table we get
BSNL provides 10 GB data in smallest
rate, that is; 10 GB data at Rs.549.
From the above five cases we get BSNL
provides best mobile data offers in
lower rate to the customers.
Findings
 Three service providers in Kerala
provide different 3G data plans
 Among all the three service
providers in Kerala BSNL provides
more data at low cost.
Conclusion
With the demand of 3G plans from the
smartphone users, the telecom operators
give exciting discount offers for many.
Here I compared standard plans and not
taken into consideration special data plans
as all telecom operators charge them
differently. Also, we have taken into
consideration Pre-paid plans only as over
95% of people use those connections.
BSNL provides a lesser data rate compared
to Idea and Airtel for limited and unlimited
plans.
References
 www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile-
phone
 www.webopedia.com>Main
>TERM>M
 www.techopedia.com/.../mobile-
phone
 www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile-
network
 http//:searchmobilecomputing.techt
arget.com>Home>Dataandinfrastru
cture>Telecom
 www.bsnl.co.in/.../3g.html
 www.komparify.com/.../data
 www.ideacellular.com/.../3g/idea/k
erala
 www.myinternetpacks.com/3g/idea
/kerala
 www.plansinfo.com/airtel-prepaid-
kerala
 www.airtel.in/Airtel3G/tariff.html