Bharti Airtel Says No Charges for Roaming Services From April 1

[Rewati Baruah]

Bharti Airtel, country’s number one telecom network, announced that it would not charge for roaming services from April 1, 2017. It includes free incoming and outgoing calls and SMS. The company also clarified that there would be no roaming charges on mobile data as well.

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Airtel’s PAN-India Free Roaming Services:

The BIG decision will facilitate Airtel’s subscribers to carry their phone numbers across the country without worrying about roaming charges. No more bill shocks. Starting April 1, 2017, Bharti Airtel customers can roam and get connected to their near and dear ones within the country without paying any premium charges.

The most interesting thing about these free roaming charges is the inclusion of mobile data. The Airtel subscribers (both prepaid and postpaid) can enjoy home data packs even while they are in national roaming.

Announcing free roaming services, Mr. 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 travelling outside their home base. Airtel has again set the benchmark in delivering best in class value backed by a great network experience.”

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Affordable International Roaming Packs:

Similarly, Bharti Airtel has also launched some affordable international roaming packs for all the major countries across the globe. These plans offer free incoming calls and SMS, bundled calling minutes and SMS both to India and the local nation. Depending up the need, one can avail these packs that come with a validity of 1 day, 10 days and 30 days.

This facilitates the Indian subscribers to eliminate the need to get local national SIM and avoid bill shocks while roaming in international networks. This is an automatic renewal kind of thing where the user will directly be placed when he has the sufficient daily balance.

With this, one can access mobile data and call charges at reduced prices somewhere at ₹3/MB and ₹3/minute. For example, the one-day international roaming pack will cost ₹499 in Singapore and ₹649 in the US. This daily pack includes free incoming calls and SMS, 100 India and local country outgoing minutes and 300MB data.

Truly, Bharti Airtel has removed the cost barrier in terms of national and international roaming and this BIG decision would benefit its 268 million subscribers. The free national roaming will be applicable on PAN-India basis effective from April 1st, 2017.

Free National Roaming - Reliance Jio Effect?

Incidentally, the state-run telecom company BSNL is the pioneer in making this free roaming a reality. Reliance Jio followed it by offering free voice calls across all networks with ZERO roaming charges. Now, the big step is taken by the largest telecom network operator and hope the others will take a me-too approach.

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