Days after Reliance Communications unveiled a plan that offers unlimited calls at Rs 150 per month, India’s biggest telecom operator has come up with something very similar to take on both RCom, Reliance Jio and an upcoming plan from BSNL.
Bharti Airtel has announced two new plans — one that offers unlimited Airtel to Airtel calls at Rs 148 per month and another which offers 1 GB of 4G data and unlimited calls to any network at Rs 345.
Given that the cost of 1 GB of 4G data is around Rs 150, the actual price charged by Airtel for unlimited calls to any network works out to around Rs 200 per month.
That said, the offer is not much cheaper than what Reliance Jio has put forward.
The Mukesh Ambani-led firm offers unlimited calls and 4 GB of 4G data at Rs 500.
In other words, for an extra Rs 150, you get an extra allowance of 3 GB of 4G data if you choose the Jio pack.
Moreover, Jio also offers unlimited calling to any network at just Rs 149 per month, while Airtel’s plan of the same price will enable to you to make unlimited calls only to other Airtel numbers.
On the other hand, both RCom and the rumored plan from BSNL support unlimited calls to all networks. However, BSNL’s offer is likely to be similar to that of Airtel and to come with 1 GB of 3G data and unlimited calls at around Rs 250 per month. The plan will be unveiled early next month.
The 149 plan from Jio and the 345 offer from Airtel make sense only for those with 4G handsets.
Reliance Jio’s network currently support only LTE handsets and other handsets simply don’t work.
In case of Airtel, the 1GB of data bundled in the Rs 345 pack is designated as ‘4G’, which means that you need a compatible handset for the same to work.
Airtel does, sometimes, allow users to make use of 4G data on 3G networks as well. But it is not clear if that facility applies to the new unlimited calling pack.
