While the other telecom players including Reliance Communications, Aircel, and BSNL were busy announcing new tariff plans for competing with Reliance Jio’s unlimited voice calling packs, the leading telecom operators (Airtel, Vodafone, and Idea) were playing the wait-and-watch game.
Now, Airtel- the market leader having over 260 million mobile subscribers, has launched 2 new unlimited calling and data combo packs having a validity of 28 days each. The entry-level pack is priced at Rs. 146 and the other pack is priced at Rs. 349.
Airtel’s Answer To Jio’s Rs. 149 Unlimited Calling Pack
We were wondering whether Airtel would be able to match Jio’s unlimited calling packs starting at Rs. 149 that come bundled with a fixed amount of 4G data.
“This is another initiative from us to bring innovative bundle offers to our customers in line with our endeavour to provide the great value backed by a superior network experience,” said Ajai Puri, Director- Market Operations, India and South Asia, Bharti Airtel.
This newly launched Airtel Rs. 146 pack will offer 300 MB 4G data (to subscribers with 4G ready phones) along with unlimited Local/STD calls to Airtel numbers. The pack will also offer free 50 MB data to subscribers having “basic mobile phones” for web surfing and accessing light social media apps.
Rs. 349 Pack Offers Truly Unlimited Calling & 1 GB 4G Data
If you didn’t like above mentioned Airtel unlimited calling pack (Rs. 146), then this pack will not disappoint you.
Priced at Rs. 349, this pack offers unlimited Local/STD calls to any operator in India. The data benefit includes 1 GB 4G data, and 50 MB data for those using “basic mobile phones”.
Both these plans are available to all Airtel subscribers pan-India starting today.
It is worth noting that the unlimited voice calling and data combo plans from Jio, Reliance, Aircel, and BSNL are priced close to Rs. 149 which is way below the Rs. 349 plan offered by Airtel. But Airtel’s offering includes 1 GB data while the others’ only has 300 MB data.
This is the first major reaction from any of the top 3 telecom operators to Jio’s unlimited voice calling packs. We are certain that Vodafone and Idea would also announce similar tariff plans soon, and when they do, it would be the start of a new era in the Indian telecom market.