On Sunday, the telecom operator Idea Cellular announced that it will start providing free incoming calls to domestic roaming customers from April 1. Along with free incoming, the company has also announced various international roaming value packs.
Sashi Shankar, Chief Marketing Officer at Idea Cellular stated, “While incoming calls will be free, customers will also be able to enjoy outgoing calls, SMS and data services at affordable rates, starting April 1.” The facility of free incoming calls on domestic roaming will be provided for both prepaid and postpaid customers.
For international travellers, the operator has introduced roaming value packs with free bundled usage of up to 400 outgoing minutes, 100 SMS per day, large data volume and unlimited incoming calls. The Aditya Birla group has also promised a 3GB bundled data and unlimited incoming calls for Rs2,499 for Asia, and Rs5,999 for Europe for 30 days validity.
The third largest Indian mobile operator also said, “These international roaming packs also come bundled with free 1GB/2GB/3GB data and coverage charges as low as Rs3 per MB to avoid bill shock to travelling customers.”
These mind blowing offers come in order to combat the rival Bharti Airtel company which announced the removal of all roaming charges for outgoing and incoming calls as well as SMSes and data usage within India. This also intends to give competition to the incentives and pricing offered by Reliance Jio.
Idea said it had studied customer’s travel destinations, usage patterns and bill shock complaints to design a new range of value packs for handpicked destinations across Europe (15 countries), Asia (9 countries), America (USA and Canada), UK (UK and Ireland) and Middle East (UAE).
The packs start at Rs. 1,199 for 10 days validity and go up to Rs. 5,999 for 30 days validity, giving up to 85% savings on International Roaming charges.
