The country’s largest telecom service provider Bharti Airtel (Airtel) on Thursday launched a cheaper plan for its pre-paid customers that will give free voice calling and data benefits, in a bid to counter competition from Reliance Jio.
The two new bundled packs are available at ₹145 and ₹345, offering customers more flexibility.
The ₹145 pack will offer 300 MB data to customers with 4G-ready mobile phones, along with free local and STD Airtel-to-Airtel calls, the company said.
Similarly, the ₹345 pack offers 1GB data to customers with 4G ready mobile phones along with free calls – Local and STD – to any network in India. Both the packs will also offer 50 MB data (in addition to free Airtel-to-Airtel calls across India) to customers with basic mobile phones, which are ideally suited for web surfing and accessing light social media applications, Airtel said. Both the packs have a validity of 28 days and is available to customers across India.
“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,” Ajai Puri, Director of Market Operations (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel, said.
Idea follows suit Separately, Idea Cellular also rolled out two monthly voice packs – ₹148 and ₹348 – offering unlimited voice calls to anywhere in India. The packs, which also come with data benefits, enables Idea customers to make free local and STD on-network calls.
The ₹148 pack comes with 50MB data, while customers with 4G handsets will get 300 MB of data in addition. The ₹348 offers free local and STD calls across all networks in India, along with 50MB of data. Both the packs come with a 28-day validity.
“As people get into the holiday mode, they will stay better connected. For providing them connectivity at an affordable price point, we have launched these voice packs to enable prepaid users to make unlimited voice calls,” said Sashi Shankar, Chief Marketing Officer at Idea Cellular.