Airtel attempts to pull a Reliance Jio, offers free calls to customers but there’s a catch

On 5th September Mukesh Ambani launched Reliance Jio with an announcement that shook the telecom ecosystem - free calls for life. The announcement left telcos in tizzy as no amount of tariff change could match that. Today, Bharti Airtel Limited, India’s largest telecommunications services provider, announced free voice calls to anywhere in India but with a catch.

Airtel launched two new bundled packs for its prepaid customers with free voice calling Rs. 145 pack and Rs. 345 pack. But the Rs. 145 pack offers only Airtel to Airtel free calls along with 300MB of 4G data. However the Rs. 345 pack offers 1GB of 4G data along with local or STD calls to any network anywhere in India. And more importantly these packs are only limited to Delhi circle.

While telecom operators have had a massive slugfest over Jio’s trial offer as it has left telcos in a lurch to match Jio’s extravagant offer. And Airtel’s offer certainly seems bleak when compared to Jio’s free calls for life even on roaming and calls aside Jio customers can avail all Jio services for free till 31st March as part of their recently launched ‘Happy new Year’ pack.

Also read: Airtel becomes First payments bank to go live