Tariff war between Reliance Jio and the incumbent players is likely to intensify as the incumbent players have started offering tariff plan matching that of the new operator. Airtel has launched a Rs 345 plan for its prepaid users. It gives users unlimited local and STD calls plus 1GB 4G data per day with a validity of 70 days.

Other two incumbent operators Idea Cellular and Vodafone are also planning to launch similar plans anytime. RCOM, Tata and BSNL are also expected to lower their prices to match.

This means that telecom tariff will only go down in next few months testing financial power of the telecom operators.

This may be a good situation for the industry at least for a few months but may not be good for general health of the industry.

It also brings to focus the role of the regulator who has not shown any interest in tackling the issue of high debt of the industry. The industry has a debt of about Rs 4.5 lakh crore and its revenue is only to the tune of Rs 2.5 lakh crore.

Airtel’s New Offers:

Rs. 244 Plan

For Rs. 244 offer, Airtel users will get 1GB data per day for 70 days if they have a 4G smartphone and 4G SIM card; there are no restrictions of timing for data consumption except the 1GB daily FUP. The offer comes with unlimited STD and local calls, but users only get a maximum of 300 minutes of free Airtel to Airtel calls per day, and 1,200 minutes of free calls on the network for a week. If the user exhausts the free call minutes, they will be charged Rs. 0.10 per minute.

Airtel Rs. 399 Plan

Under this Plan, the 4G user gets 1GB data per day. Users can make free calls to any network, but there is a limit of 3,000 minutes for the 70-day period; if you exhaust the bundled free minutes, the rate is Rs. 0.10 per minute. On calls made to Airtel numbers, the limit is 300 minutes per day and 1,200 minutes per week.

Airtel's new Rs. 345 pack

Airtel has upgraded the data limit on its Rs. 345 pack from 1GB per day to 2GB per day. Moreover, there is no restriction of timing regarding the data consumption; this is a major incentive for users to buy the pack as they were restricted to 500MB for 12am and 6am, and the remaining 500MB for the rest of the day. The Rs. 345 Airtel pack with 28 days validity has the same limits on free calls as the Rs. 399 pack.