Death of National Roaming – Airtel announces Free Incoming calls/SMS and No Premium on Outgoing Calls while
Roaming across India; no more data roaming charges
No Bill Shocks while Roaming Overseas – daily billing will be automatically adjusted to the price of basic one
day pack even for customers who don’t buy a roaming pack
New Delhi, Feb 27, 2017: Bharti Airtel (“Airtel”), India’s largest telecommunications
services provider, today announced radical changes that redefine the value proposition for domestic and
international roaming. With this, Airtel mobile customers will be able to carry their numbers across India and the
world and stay connected all the time without having to worry about high call/data charges. Bill shocks will now be
a thing of the past.
National Roaming – Free Incoming Calls; No Premium on Outgoing Calls; No Data Roaming Charges
Starting April 1, 2017, Airtel customers roaming within India will enjoy free incoming calls/SMS and there will be
no premium on outgoing calls allowing them to speak freely wherever they are within the country. Also, there
will be no additional data charges on national roaming. Home data packs for customers will apply even while they
roam across India.
Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel said, “This marks the death of
national roaming and the whole country will now be like a local network for our customers, who will not have to
think twice before making or receiving calls or using data while traveling outside their home base. Airtel has again
set the benchmark in delivering best in class value backed by a great network experience.”
No bill shocks on International Roaming
Airtel has already launched innovative and affordable International Roaming packs for all major countries across the
world. These packs come with convenient validity options of 1 day, 10 days, and 30 days and offer loads of benefits
including free incoming calls/SMS, calling minutes and texts both to India and the local country as well as generous
dollops of data to stay online. These packs have received an overwhelming response from customers, shielding them
from any bill shock and eliminating the need for a local country SIM. However, there are still several cases
of customers inadvertently failing to choose these packs and suffering bill shocks due to the steep roaming
charges on international networks.
Starting April 1, 2017, even customers on international roaming Without a Pack will be fully protected from bill
shocks through an automatic adjustment that is equal to the daily pack for that particular country. This means that
the moment a customer’s billing reaches the price of a one day pack for the country, he/she will be automatically
moved to that pack. This will allow our customers to use their devices abroad without any fear. Even post the
exhaustion of pack benefits, customers will continue to enjoy extremely attractive rates for calling and data usage.
Call Charges have been reduced by upto 90% to as low as Rs. 3/min and data charges by upto 99% to Rs 3/ MB across
popular roaming destinations. Customers are advised to check the applicable pack rates for the country they are
traveling to at www.airtel.in/ir.
Here is an example of how Airtel’s new international
roaming pricing works. When a customer traveling to the USA without a pack hits the threshold of Rs 649 (the
price of the one day pack for USA), he/she will automatically move to the one day pack with free incoming calls/SMS,
100 India and local country outgoing minutes, 300 MB data and a host of other benefits. Similarly, a customer
traveling to Singapore will move to the one day pack the moment his/her usage hits the Rs 499 mark.
Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Airtel said, "At Airtel, we are changing the international
roaming paradigm, which will allow our customers to take their number to every corner of the world. As an industry,
operators across the world must collaborate to remove the cost barrier to roaming and offer customers the
convenience of staying connected without the fear of exorbitant bill charges."
Sunil Bharti Mittal is also the Chairman of GSMA, which represents nearly 800 of the world’s mobile operators.
Watch Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman, Bharti Airtel and Chairman, GSMA share his thoughts on Airtel’s new
Roaming paradigm
About Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 17 countries across Asia and
Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 3 mobile service providers globally in
terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile
commerce, fixed line services, high speed home
broadband, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers.
In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had
over 368 million customers across its operations at the end of January 2017. To know more please visit, www.airtel.in