Airtel today announced that it will offer free incoming calls while roaming nationally for all its customers. Starting this April 1st, all Airtel customers, travelling anywhere in the country, can take incoming calls for free without opting for any special packs. Vodafone introduced this last year.
Airtel had already launched affordable International Roaming packs for all major countries across the world. These packs come with convenient validity options of 1 day, 10 days, and 30 days and offer loads of benefits including free incoming calls/SMS, calling minutes and texts both to India and the local country as well as generous dollops of data to stay online.
However some customers who fail choose these packs suffer bill shocks due to the steep roaming charges on international networks. Starting April 1, 2017, even customers on international roaming without a Pack will be fully protected from bill shocks through an automatic adjustment that is equal to the daily pack for that particular country.
This means that the moment a customer’s billing reaches the price of a one day pack for the country, he/she will be automatically moved to that pack. Airtel says that this will allow our customers to use their devices abroad without any fear.
Even post the exhaustion of pack benefits, customers will continue to enjoy extremely attractive rates for calling and data usage. Also also said that the Call Charges have been reduced by upto 90% to as low as Rs. 3/min and data charges by upto 99% to Rs 3/ MB across popular roaming destinations.
Commenting on the new move, Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel said:
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 traveling outside their home base. Airtel has again set the benchmark in delivering best in class value backed by a great network experience.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Airtel said:
At Airtel, we are changing the international roaming paradigm, which will allow our customers to take their number to every corner of the world. As an industry, operators across the world must collaborate to remove the cost barrier to roaming and offer customers the convenience of staying connected without the fear of exorbitant bill charges.