Bharti Airtel on 17 June 2016 declared that it is going to increase the data benefits by up to 67 percent on its existing 3G and 4G packs.
As it stands after the revision, Airtel will offer 5GB 3G/4G data on a monthly recharge of Rs. 655, as opposed to the 3GB that it used to offer earlier. The pack that offered 2GB at Rs. 455 now offers 3GB. The pack costing Rs. 989 that used to allow 6.5 GB 4G/3G data now allows 10GB.
There have also been revisions to the 2G packs. Following are the new packs:
| Rs. 5 | 30MB for one day |
| Rs. 25 | 145MB (increased from 100MB) |
| Rs. 145 | 580MB (increased from 440MB) |
The tariff war is on between three of the largest telecom operators in India, namely: Airtel, Idea, Reliance. This announcement by Airtel just two days after Idea cut down its tariff. All this comes out ahead of the imminent public rollout of Reliance Jio’s services. In light of these, it is only a matter of time before other players like Vodafone join in for the tariff war.
Also Read: Reliance Jio tariff plans revealed ahead of launch: Check all plans
The company’s director of operations (India & South Asia), Ajay Puri said that these refreshed data packs are aimed at driving consumption and boosting the “uptake of mobile internet in the country” by means of increasing affordability.
The entry of Reliance Jio into the market will start eroding the tariffs, said Sunil Mittal, Chairman of Bharti Airtel. This kind of a change was previously seen when reliance CDMA cut down its call rates in the early 2000s.
In their report for Q2 of 2016, Reliance announced that Jio has 1.5 million test users, and their individual average consumption of data is 26GB per month. However, this could only be the result of the free services provided by the operator.
