Airtel Launches Per-Sec Roaming Tariffs – All calls at 1.5p/second

Airtel has finally awoken to the upcoming tariff-war on Roaming-Calls, and launched Per-second tariffs for Roaming Calls.

While Roaming tariffs have been slashed over the last few years, it has been only Tata Docomo and BSNL who have been bold enough to offer PER SECOND / INCOMING FREE call charges, while roaming across India.With Tata Docomo’s RC46 one can avail free incoming calls on Roaming for 60 days, while BSNL has a similar offering with RC150 that includes some freebies as well.

Now Airtel India’s prepaid mobile customers can roam over the country at just 1.5 paisa per second. Airtel introduces a new STV for that purpose, which varies slightly from circle to circle. For eg. Kolkata Airtel customers can recharge with RC25 and roam at 1.5p/sec. Similar STV is available in West Bengal for RC37, while Orissa users pay just Rs28 for getting this benefit on roaming. The offer is a on-going offer.

Finer details of Airtel’s 1.5p/sec Roaming plans:

1. This is available on LAPU Recharge only

2. Applicable for all Prepaid Customers of WBO Only ( Except FWP, CCB, Turbo & Channel)

3. Tariff Validity 6 months

4. Recharge Convenience:

Online PV will be available via SMS (Customer to send SMS to “Roam” to 121) and IVR (Call 12131 to opt online) or available at Retail.

As a special offer, Default Roaming Tariffs at 1.5p/sec (OG/IC) has been given to customers.Validity of Tariff is 3 months for customer base who has been given the benefit by default.

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Airtel 3G Old vs New Tariffs Compared

A comparison between the old and new Airtel 3G Plans.

Pre-paid	Old	New	Validity
Pay as you go	10p/10kb	3p/10kb	N/A
Data Plans
10 MB	Rs. 8	N/A	1 Day
150 MB	N/A	Rs. 45	7 Days
200 MB	Rs 100	N/A	30 Days
300 MB	N/A	Rs 100	30 Days
500 MB	Rs. 200	N/A	30 Days
1GB	N/A	Rs. 250	30 Days
1200 MB	Rs. 450	N/A	30 Days
2 GB	N/A	Rs. 450	30 Days
4 GB	Rs. 750	Rs. 750	30 Days
10 GB	Rs. 1250	Rs. 1500	30 Days

The Pay as you go plan has Rs.1000 Bill Shield on post-paid plans. The post-paid plans are pretty much the same as the pre-paid plans and the Bill Shield value is same as the old plan.

The recharge amount for the plans differ based on the region, head on to Airtel 3G Tariff Page to check the details for your circle.

What do you think ? Are the new 3G plans affordable?

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Bharti Airtel Launches ‘Airtel Money Super Account’ Powered by Axis Bank

Airtel and Axis Bank today announced a partnership for extending banking and payment services to India’s unbanked millions through the ubiquitous mobile platform.

 

With the partnership announced today no-frills savings account of Axis Bank will be opened for customers on the Airtel Money platform called ‘airtel money Super Account powered by Axis Bank’ offering customers banking transactions including cash deposit, money transfer and withdrawal.

These accounts will provide convenient, safe and secure savings avenue to Financial Inclusion customers’ paying them savings account interest and also enabling them to make remittances.

To begin with, savings and remittance solutions will be provided in the top four remittance corridors involving Delhi and Mumbai on the sending side and Bihar and East UP on the receiving side. Thereafter these services may be extended to other remittance corridors in the country.

 

Gradually other banking products and services like micro Recurring Deposits, micro Fixed Deposits, small loans and micro-insurance products will also be provided through this platform.

Mobile customers can visit nearest authorised ‘airtel money – Axis Bank outlets’ and open ‘airtel money Super Account powered by Axis Bank’ on their mobile phones by submitting the prescribed application form and KYC documents.

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Airtel Brings new affordable 3G plans

Airtel has launched new 3G plans for pre-paid and post-paid customers, They have also introduced Smartbytes additional data usage packs for its postpaid Airtel mobile customers on 3G. Now the plans start at 10MB that would offer 30 minutes of 3G access valid for 1 day.

Now Rs. 100 pack offers 300MB free data, Rs. 250 3G pack would offer 1GB of free data, Rs. 450 pack would offer 2GB of free data and Rs 1500 pack would offer 10GB free data that are valid for 30 days.

New Airtel 3G plans for pre-paid and post-paid customers

Airte Smartbytes packs for postpaid customers

Now the volume based browsing charges are down from 10p/10kb to just 3p/10kb. These plans are available for both pre-paid and post-paid customers across all 3G circles as well as dongles. The smartbytes plan is available for post-paid customers.

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Airtel Launching 4G services in Bangalore on May 7

Bharti Airtel, India’s largest mobile service operator is set to roll out its 4G - High Speed Wireless Broadband Service on May 7th 2012 in Bangalore (Karnataka). After Kolkata, Bangalore will be the 2nd city to get 4G service in India.

According to our exclusive sources close to the operator, Airtel 4G network is ready in Bangalore and commercial service network will be live from May 7, 2012 followed by official launch event.

Presently only Airtel is providing 4G services in India and it has selected Huawei to deploy its 4G TD LTE network in Karnataka besides offering rich data content to the customers in Bangalore – Karnataka circle.

Airtel will offer 4G – LTE services over a wide range of devices including airtel 4G – LTE USB modem (Huawei E392) and airtel 4G LTE Indoor Wireless Gateway (Huawei B593). Airtel officials at the launch event clarified that it requires a 4G enabled 128kB USIM (priced at Rs. 49) to use on the dongle. The airtel 4G LTE data card and WiFi CPE will be network locked. The price of the dongle and WiFi CPE are Rs. 7999 and Rs. 7750 respectively.

So with Airtel 4G-LTE you can use mobile Broadband with bandwidth up to 40Mbps ! as its tag-line says Don’t surf, just fly!

Airtel 4G LTE deployed on Huawei TD LTE technology, will allow subscribers to experience high speed wireless Internet access that can support bandwidth intensive applications, support video streaming and high-definition video conferencing. Under this agreement, Huawei will deliver the LTE solution comprising of network infrastructure and devices.

In 2010, Airtel had successfully bid for 4G BWA license spectrum in Kolkata, Karnataka, Punjab and Maharashtra (excluding Mumbai) circles. Currently Airtel 4G Service is available in Kolkata circle.

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Airtel Launches Online Shopping Website– " Airtel Shop "

Bharti Airtel, leading global telecommunications company and India’s largest Mobile service provider today launched its own ‘Airtel Shop’, the first online shopping portal in India by any telecom service provider to deliver mobile devices and telecom products directly to the users.

Airtel Shop in association with Infibeam.com will offer the entire portfolio of latest Mobile Phones and devices as well as accessories.The Airtel Shop has been launched and live as http://shop.airtel.com to sell entire range of Apple iPhone, Nokia, Samsung, Sony, LG, HTC and BlackBerry devices – including smartphones, dual SIM phones, Touch and Type, QWERTY, Touch phones and value phones.

A recent report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) reveals that India’s e-commerce market is growing at an average rate of 70 percent annually, and has grown over 500 percent in the past three years alone. Airtel and Infibeam’s association will may serve as a game-changer in the growing Indian e-commerce space.

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India GSM Subscribers Base in March 2012 – Airtel Leads ..!

Bharti Airtel tops in the new subscriber additions, added a total of 2.5 million new GSM subscribers followed by IDEA Cellular added the 2nd highest number of new subscribers with 2.01 million in March. Bharti Airtel now has more than 181 million GSM customers with a 27.22% market share.

According to the data released by COAI total 6.87 million new GSM subscribers added with 1.04% increase from previous month taking the all-India GSM cellular subscriber base to 664.08 million at the end of March 2012.

Videocon once again lost 0.25 million subscribers. The user base of Videocon stood at 5.95 million.AIRCEL also lost 0.68 million customers and its subscriber base was at 62.57 million.

Among the leading GSM Mobile Service Operators, Vodafone India added 1.02 million new customers, boosting its subscriber base 150.46 million. Uninor that lost licences in the SC’s 2G judgment, notched 1.29 million new customers. Its user base was at 42.43 million by March-end

State run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) added 0.89 million taking their subscriber base to 94.67 million. Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) added 62399 new users during the month, boosting its total base to 5.93 million at the end of March ’2011.

Other Operators such as STel, Etisalat DB (Cheers Mobile) and Loop Telecom (except Loop Mobile -Mumbai) have announced shutting down of mobile services as earlier we shared on TelecomTalk and are now helping their users move to other operators through Mobile Number Portability (MNP).

Please note : COAI GSM Subscriber base does not include the Reliance Communications (Rcom) and Tata Docomo’s GSM subscriber Base (same not submitted to COAI).

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Airtel Rebrands its B2B Business, Comes up with New Name and Strategy

Airtel today refreshed its B2B business as airtel business. With this new identity, airtel business the company claims that its commitment of delivering innovative business solutions and a superior brand experience to all its large & small enterprises, government and carrier customers across the globe.

Airtel buisness also offers digital media services, a centralized online media management and distribution platform akin to a media exchange linking all the content owners, production facilities and screens enabling them to store , forward, share & trade multi versions of produced content to multiple platforms across the globe.

With a global network of 225,000 Rkms covering 50 countries across 5 continents, airtel business has established itself as one of the leading players in the B2B segment.Over the last 4-5 years, the company has invested over $500mn in next generation cable systems. It‘s globe spanning submarine cable assets offer the necessary diversity, increased redundancy and network resilience to the customers.

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Airtel launches 4G LTE services in Kolkata

Airtel has launched India’s first 4G service in Kolkata. It is based on TD-LTE. The Airtel 4G website went live yesterday and the 4G plans starts from Rs. 999. It would allow superfast access to High Definition (HD) video streaming, multiple chatting, instant uploading of photos and much more.

Airtel 4G LTE plans

Plan name	Rental (Rs.)	Free usage quota (GB)	Charge after quota (INR)	Speed after quota completion (kbps)
Break free	999	6	Nil	128
Break free max	1399	9	Nil	128
Break free Ultra	1999	18	Nil	128

These plans are available in Prepaid and Postpaid. On the Rs.999 postpaid plan , customer will get a money-back for a value equivalent of one month’s rent, spread over first 6 bill cycles. Customers will get a bill discount of Rs.167/ bill for 6 bills.

On the Rs.1399 and Rs.1999 postpaid plans , customer will get a money-back for a value equivalent of two month’s rent, spread over first 6 bill cycles. Customers will get a bill discount of Rs.466/ bill for 6 bills in case of Rs.1399 plan , and Rs.666 / bill for 6 bills in case of Rs.1999 plan.

Smartbyes packs would be available soon.

Device Pricing

Device	MRP (In Rs)
Indoor CPE with wi-fi	7750
4G Multi Mode Dongle	7999

Airtel won BWA license spectrum in Kolkata, Karnataka, Punjab and Maharashtra (excluding Mumbai) circles in 2010. It plans to launch 4G services in other circles in India. You can visit your nearest Airtel Relationship Center (ARC) or call 1800-103-0405 (toll-free) to get more info.

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TRAI Website Gets A New Look

Change is good and we all love to see and feel the change.Telecom watchdog of India, our beloved TRAI has finally risen and welcomes a change. Well I am actually talking about a revamped TRAI website.

Yeah TRAI website has got a refreshing look after a long haul of quite a few years and it looks more elegant and stylish in all sorts. A way more colorful and with new fonts and layout the new website seems very promising with everything well sorted to its best.

A quick look into TRAI’s website you will find every topic under sub heads and tabs with clear cut explanations unlike the old website where everything seemed all messy. See for yourself and compare it with the decade old website (if only you have visited before) and now you can even get in touch with the officials.

The new website has put in all the contact numbers and the email ids of the concerned person and concerned departments.

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Airtel offers full Talktime on Rs. 200, 300, 500 and 1000 via online Easy Recharge

Airtel has launched new Fulltalk time offers at Rs.200, Rs. 300, Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000. These packs were already available on online Easy Recharge since the launch, but now these packs come with Fulltalk time without any validity. The previous fulltalk time packs of Rs. 333 and Rs. 444 is also available.

Airtel Full Talktime recharge packs

To recharge your prepaid number head on to Airtel online Easy Recharge page, fill the required details and select the full talktime recharge in the recharge category.

 

 

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Airtel Launches My Account Services For Prepaid Customers Across India

    Airtel announced the launch of My Account services for prepaid customers across India.

Airtel my account service will offer customers in tracking of prepaid account in real time basis which will help customers to cope up with faulty balance eduction.

Remember our earlier post in which we said that AirTel and Vodafone will soon come up with My Account services for prepaid subscribers and it looks like Airtel wanted to make a first mover advantage which made them to launch the services.

The Airtel My account services currently offers the following features.

a)Details on balance and validity.

b)Start/Stop any Value Added Service.

c)Auto suggest customers which is the best tariff to opt for depending on the usage.

d)Shows the current call tariff details.

e)One can also activate Airtel 3G online.

f)The last 5 recharge details and the details of last 5 VAS debit which took place.

g)One can also avail the Airtel PUK code online using the my account services.

h)Offers customers to file complain related to network coverages, call drops, faulty billing etc.

 

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