Airtel Launches ‘myPlan Infinity’ With Unlimited Local, STD & National Roaming Calls and 3G/4G data

With Reliance Jio entering the market, major telcos in India are gearing up to face the disruptive service that will attract a lot of people in large and small cities. In a desperate attempt to engage the existing customers, Airtel, Idea and Vodafone has slashed their data rates.

Airtel launched the flexible ‘myPlan’ in 2013 which aimed at customer engagement by allowing the customer to choose from variety of packs instead of forcing fixed services on the customer. The plan became quite popular, and here comes a huge installment from Airtel.

Ajai Puri, Director – Operations (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel said, “With ‘myPlan Infinity’ we are making voice calls free for our customers and offering them the flexibility to combine this benefit with their individual data requirements. With the new price points, we have made the proposition even more affordable and this will benefit customers with very heavy voice usage.”

The New Delhi-based telecom operator has launched two new myPlan Infinity postpaid plans that offer unlimited voice calls, messaging packs along with bundled 3G/4G data starting at just Rs 1,199. The USP of these postpaid plans is the free unlimited voice calling, not available on other networks with such services.

Airtel postpaid myPlan Infinity

Benefits	Plan Costs
	Rs. 1199/- *New	Rs. 1599/-*New	Rs. 1999/-	Rs. 2999/-
Data quota	1GB 3G/4G	5GB 3G/4G	10GB 3G/4G	20GB 3G/4G
Voice	Unlimited Local calls + STD + Roaming	Unlimited local calls + STD + Roaming	Unlimited local calls + STD + Roaming	Unlimited local calls + STD + Roaming
Pay-as-you-go rate on data#	50p/MB	50p/MB	50p/MB	50p/MB
SMS	100 SMS per day	100 SMS per day	100 SMS per day	100 SMS per day
Wynk Music offer##	Unlimited music	Unlimited music	Unlimited music	Unlimited music
Wynk Movies offer##	Unlimited movies (Eros Now/Hooq)	Unlimited movies (Eros Now/Hooq)	Unlimited movies (Eros Now/Hooq)	Unlimited movies (Eros Now/Hooq)

 

#After the data quota consumption, further data usage will be charged at 50p/MB (billing at per 10kp pulse)

Features of myPlan Infinity

Under the new ‘Infinity’ plans, for Rs. 1,199, customers will enjoy unlimited voice calling – local, STD, and on national roaming – along with 100 SMS per day, 1GB 3G/4G data and free subscription to Wynk Music and Wynk Movies. By unlimited voice calling, Airtel actually means any amount of calling, without a cap.

For Rs. 1,599, customers will get the same benefits as above, except 5G of 3G/4G data instead of just 1GB. Essentially you’re paying Rs. 400 for an extra 4G of data which we think is slightly overpriced and Airtel should’ve charged just Rs. 200 more.

The other two plans that are already there in the market, are priced quite high at Rs. 1,999 and Rs. 2,999 that will offer the same services as the other two plans, except the free data has been capped at 10GB and 20GB. The two new plans are aimed at people who prefer having unlimited calling service instead of more data.

The two plans also provide unlimited subscription to Wynk Music and Wynk Movies, so while you might run out of data, you can easily watch movies and listen to music on WiFi networks. Once all free GBs are exhausted, 50p/MB will be charged for additional data.

Will these cheaper plans be successful?

Unlimited voice calling is sure to attract a lot of people to these plans, and considering they’re just the cheaper versions of the existing Infinity plans, a lot of existing Airtel customers might downgrade to these offers.

Idea Cellular offers a similar plan at Rs. 999 that provides unlimited local and STD minutes and 500 SMS every month. This doesn’t compare to the new plans from Airtel that now only include free data, but also free calls on roaming and full access to its Wynk application. None of the plans right now can probably match these from Airtel.

There are network problems that plague Airtel in its circles, but Airtel has come out with ‘Open Network’ policy that allows its users to keep a check on nearby Airtel towers and lodge a complaint in case of any deficiencies.

This is a plan we have always wanted – unlimited voice calls to anyone in the country, even on roaming. Corporate users will be extremely satisfied with this plan that gives them so much flexibility with data and voice calls. But is it enough to take on Reliance Jio? We will get to know that in a couple of months.