Airtel, Vodafone, Idea hikes 2G data rates by over 25%

While 2G data charges have been hiked, 3G data charges will remain unchanged or might even be reduced.

Three major telecom operators in India - Airtel, Vodafone and Idea - have hiked their 2G data rates across all their major circles. This is the second time in less than a year that the telecom operators have hiked the mobile data tariffs.

All the three telecos are now offering the 1 GB pack, which used to cost Rs 99, for Rs 125 across all their major circles. The 2 GB unlimited pack, offered by both Airtel and Idea, is now priced at Rs 199 against its earlier price of Rs 149. In April 2012, the three operators had also reduced the data cap on the Rs 99 pack from 2 GB to 1 GB in most circles.

However, there is no change in unbundled data usage which continues to be charged at 10 paise per 10 KB.

While 2G data charges have been hiked, 3G data charges will remain unchanged or might even be reduced as 3G adoption has remained dismal in the country. On the other hand, 2G data adoption has increased by almost 300 per cent in the last one year, according to reports.

Airtel Joins Idea Cellular: Blackout Days Extended to Voice Calls Starting 2013

As expected after Idea Cellular, Airtel extends black out days on voice calls along with SMS. It is already shown on Airtel’s website and it says: ‘ On Black Out days all person to person SMS and Voice calls will be charged at normal rates and not at discounted rates’.

On Black out days,No SMS packs benefits will be applicable. Normal SMS rates of Re 1 for local SMS, Rs 1.50 for National SMS and Rs 5 for International SMS and voice call rate of customer tariff plan will apply between 00.00 hrs to 24.00 hr.

Airtel SMS and Voice Black out days 2013

1. 1st January – New year
2. 14th February – Valentine Day
3. 27th March – Holi
4. 3rd November – Diwali
5. 31st December – New year eve

Airtel WiFi to Be Rolled out Soon

It’s been in discussion to offload data to WiFi from cellular network for a time, it seem Airtel is going into that way. Airtel, India’s largest mobile operator is launching WiFi services across India in coming days.

As of now Airtel will start offering WiFi services in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Banglore in inital phase. Airtel is offering secure wireless broadband internet with unlimited usage. All the WiFi plans are session or time based. Rs 20 offer 30 minutes of usage with unlimited downloads. Rs 30 and Rs 50 offers 60 minutes and 120 minutes of usage respectively.

Just find out Airtel Hotspot and select ‘airtel WiFi Zone‘, activate voucher and login to start browsing. For customer support Airtel opens a new helpline on 18001022244.

Airtel also opens up options for WiFi Hangout for an establishment owner and WiFi Partner for the cafe, restaurant owners. Airtel WiFi Partners can start offering service at zero investments and can earn commission on every WiFi session sold.

This move is similar to Aircel’s WiFi offering partnering SpectraNet in selected cities – Agra, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Goa, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Mumbai and Pune. Stated in February 2011, Aircel currently offers 3 WiFi plans – Hourly pack Rs 15 offers 50 MB usage at upto 256kbps speed for 1 hour; 24Hrs pack Rs 25 offers 100 MB usage at upto 512kbps speed for241 hour, Monthly plan Rs 249 offers 3GB usage at upto 1Mbps speed for 30 days. The billing was done on Aircel prepaid account or postpaid bill.

On Airtel website we don’t find any speed limitation or fair usage policy details, though we afraid they are very much present. If any of our readers tested Aircel or Airtel’s WiFi, please drop us a comment regarding your experiences with them.

Airtel launches data sharing plan to share 3G data with three devices

Airtel has launched a new 3G data plan that allows the subscriber to share one plan with three different devices. The plan can only be shared with other Airtel numbers, irrespective of whether they are prepaid or postpaid. The only condition is they have to be Airtel numbers in the same circle.

The plan starts at Rs 1,000, which is valid for 30 days for 5GB of cumulative data. The subscriber can share it with two other Airtel subscribers or two other devices that use Airtel numbers. Users can visit www.airtel.in/datashare or SMS “DATA SHARE ADD mobile number” to add phone numbers with which they can share their data plan.

We think this is a great initiative by Airtel considering many users have multiple devices (smartphones, tablets) and it would make it easier to pay for just one data plan and use it across devices. There have been times when I have not completely used the data allocated on my iPad’s data plan while my smartphone usage goes beyond the monthly limit and I end up paying extra for the usage over the limit. A plan like this makes complete sense in such situations. Hopefully, other carriers would also introduce similar plans.

TRAI Quality of Service report : Airtel’s Cellular Network is best in Mumbai and Maharashtra

Airtel has delivered on all network quality parameters in Mumbai and Maharashtra circles as per TRAI’s Quality of Service (QoS) report released in the second quarter of 2012.

The report rated Airtel as best on all network quality benchmarks defined by TRAI – For Instance Availability of Network, Ease of originating a Call or a Data Session , Voice Clarity and Ability to successfully complete the Calls and Data Sessions.

As of now Airtel has its network present in 5,115 census towns and 453,148 non-census towns and villages in India, covering approximately 86.3% of the country’s population.

The company offers coverage on approx. 95% of rail routes and has invested in 151,719 RKms of Optic fibre for carrying long distance domestic traffic both captive and for other domestic players. It has ownership in 7 submarine cable systems wholly or through a consortium expanding our global network to over 225,000 RKms, covering 50 countries across 5 continents.

Airtel Mobitude 2012 Announced: In-depth Analysis of Mobile Users Preferences

Bharti Airtel has announced the results for the 4th edition of Airtel Mobitude for 2012. Airtel Mobitude, similar to Google’s Zeitgeist is the annual survey of customers preferences to see-through of consumption likes and dislikes of more than 186 million customers.

This year’s analysis highlights a fast increasing customer preference for MobileTV, thus resulting in a whopping 65% jump in traffic experienced by the service over last year. Within the MobileTV category, IPL viewing minutes jumped a record breaking 74% and viewership increased over 46% from numbers witnessed in 2011. Sony TV ranked number 1 among television channels. The traction seen by MobileTV reinforces India’s growing demand for data driven services that help customers get their dose of the best and latest in entertainment.

In 2012, India went the MMS way by crossing the 1 million mark on Diwali and jumped 145% on the festive day for the first time in the country’s MMS traffic history. The Navratri festival topped all events in terms of specialized content download traffic.

On the data side, maximum data consumption on mobile internet is typically seen during the graveyard shift between 10pm – 11pm. The Airtel mobile internet usage pattern indicates growing customer preference for social networking, looking at pictures, downloading applications, playing games, listening to music, reading news and watching videos. Video consumption is reported at its highest during night hours. Specifically, 3 video streaming and download sites fared among ‘Top 10 websites’ in 2012 (compared with only 1 last year) – thus showing growing popularity of the category.

An average of 3 million downloads on Airtel App Central were recorded every month. With 90% downloads in the ‘Free’ category, customers show a preference for the ‘freemium’ model. While 65% of application downloads are games, other popular categories including social networking, video and music players, sports, health and other entertainment.

Bharti Airtel hikes Call rates by 20% in 6 circles

India’s largest mobile services firm, Bharti Airtel, has hiked call rates in six telecom circles. The company has raised rates by 20 per cent. This is the first hike by Bharti in nearly three years.
Most calls would now cost 1.2 paise per second from the earlier 1 paise per second. Bharti is the second telcom firm to hike tariffs after Tata Docomo. Tata Docomo had hiked prepaid tariffs in Tamil Nadu.
In a statement the company said, “Telecom is probably the only industry where despite increasing inflation, tariffs have been falling unabatedly. Continuously declining margins, high 3G & BWA auction prices, constrained spectrum and rural roll out aspirations leave us with little choice but to make some price corrections. We are committed to enhance value for our customers through continued investments in network, technology, customer experience and life enriching services”.
Bharti has also announced an increase in the pre-paid tariff rates of its ‘Advantage’ pack. The company announced that users of advantage packs, which are based on per minute billing, will have to pay 60 paise per minute for local and STD calls to mobile phones and 90 paise for local and STD calls to landlines.
Furthermore, Re 1 and Rs. 1.5 will be charged for local and national SMSes, respectively. Existing
users will have to pay for new rates after the validity of their existing voucher ends.
There is no increase in the tariff of its ‘Freedom’ pack, which is based on per second billing.
on the Bombay Stock Exchange.