NEW DELHI: With the competition between Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio Infocomm and other operators getting serious, customers could expect to be pampered like never before. On Monday, Bharti Airtel scrapped roaming charges for both voice and data services, in an attempt to catch up with Jio, which announced the same about a week ago.
“Starting April 1, 2017, Airtel customers roaming within India will enjoy free incoming calls/SMS and there will be no premium on outgoing calls,” Airtel said in a statement. Notably, April 1 is also the day when Jio will start charging its customers after free services for many months.
According to Airtel, data will also be free on national roaming. This will enable customers to use home data packs while roaming. “This marks the death of national roaming and the whole country will now be like a local network for our customers, who will not have to think twice before making or receiving calls or using data while travelling outside their home base,” said Gopal Vittal, chief executive, Bharti Airtel.
This war of predatory pricing between Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel ultimately benefits consumer as the call charges have been slashed by 90 per cent to as low as Rs 3 a minute. Data charges have been brought down by almost 99 per cent with Rs 3 an MB currently charged in popular roaming destinations.
For international roaming, Airtel said it has launched a programme to protect users from ‘bill shocks’.
“Even customers on international roaming will be fully protected...through an automatic adjustment that is equal to the daily pack for that particular country. This means the moment a customer’s billing reaches the price of a one-day pack for the country, he or she will be automatically moved to that pack,” Airtel said.
Meanwhile, company chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal on Monday called for an end to international roaming charges. Speaking at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Mittal said it’s time for the telecom fraternity “to come together to kill international roaming tariffs”.