Airtel announces removal of roaming charges on calls and data

Network operator Airtel has announced that it will be offering free incoming calls and SMS on national roaming and no premium charges on outgoing calls starting 1 April. The company also said that there will be no additional data charges on national roaming.

Home data packs for customers will apply even while they roam across India.

The move comes quite late as Vodafone had also announced free incoming calls on national roaming last year. Reliance Jio on the other hand is offering free voice calling all over India till 1 April after which it will have regular charges with no extra roaming charges.

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 also announced a special offer international roaming users. From 1 April, Airtel customers on international roaming who are not using an international roaming pack will get high phone bills as an automatic adjustment that is equal to the daily pack for that particular country will be applied. The moment a customer’s billing reaches the price of a one day pack for that particular country, he/she will be automatically moved to that pack.

Post that customers will get “attractive rates” for calling and data usage. Call Charges have been reduced by up to 90 per cent to as low as Rs 3/minute and data charges by up to 99 per cent to Rs 3/MB across popular roaming destinations.

Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of 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.”

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from http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/airtel-announces-removal-of-roaming-charges-on-calls-and-data-364490.html