Airtel Offers Free Extra Monthly Data To Its Broadband Subscribers. Is It The Threat Of Jio Fiber?

Now that the telecom wars have begun in full swing in the extremely competitive wireless network industry in India, wired broadband would be next battleground for the large giants to lock horns and fight for their survival. Keeping that in mind, Airtel has started offering extra data/month to its wired broadband subscribers.

A few days back, Airtel announced their feat of achieving 2 million broadband customers along with free data benefits for its broadband customers.

Termed as ‘Airtel Surprises’, the offer provided Airtel broadband customers with free additional monthly data on their existing plans. All the users have to do is to login to Airtel Broadband Surprises portal and unlock their surprise.

Last year, Airtel was offering 5 GB extra under MyHome Rewards to its broadband users for linking their postpaid mobile and DTH connection to their DSL accounts, but now Airtel has upped the game by increasing free data benefits to 15 GB/month.

According to a report by TelecomTalk, Airtel is offering up to 15 GB of additional monthly broadband data to those who link their active mobile postpaid or DTH accounts with their broadband accounts.

How To Get Extra Monthly Airtel Broadband Data For Free?

In order to get free monthly data on their Airtel broadband connection, you must link your current postpaid connection or your DTH account or both to your Airtel broadband account.

All you have to do is login to Airtel MyHome with your DSL account and add your active postpaid or DTH connections. Now you will get additional (5/10/15 GB) monthly data for the lifetime.

You can link a maximum of 25 connections (postpaid or DTH) to a single DSL account and get rewarded for each active connection. The additional data would get randomly rewarded to each user on the basis of the location and the number of connections linked.

What Is The Catch?

None.

There might be many reasons why Airtel is being so generous with additional broadband data. One might be the fact that Airtel is trying to build an ecosystem of services just like Reliance Jio.

The only difference is that Jio is yet to come up with its TV services, while Airtel is already offering it via DTH technology. Therefore, when Airtel announces any rewards for linking its multiple services (availed by a user) to a single account, it wants to ensure that the users stick to its ecosystem and do not migrate to a competitor.

This extra data offering is an incentive that many Airtel users might like and shift their existing Postpaid/ DTH/Broadband connection to Airtel. After all, 15 GB is a quite a significant amount.

Another major reason could be rising threat of Jio Fiber. Reliance Jio’s broadband service is already in a testing phase in select areas of Mumbai and Pune offering up to 1 Gbps speed.

The service would be launched in the next few months bundled with free 3-month usage at 100 Mbps.

Jio Fiber is also expected to launch very competitive broadband plans and pose a threat to the incumbent broadband players. So, Airtel might be trying to strengthen its position by offering huge data benefits.

Would you shift all your connections to Airtel for getting extra data on your Airtel broadband connection? Do let us know via the comments.