It's official: Bharti Airtel takes on Jio, scraps national roaming charges

Airtel offers free incoming calls, SMS and no Premium on outgoing calls while roaming across India

Telecom major Bharti Airtel has decided to do away with national roaming charges for both voice and data services , a move that will benefit its 268 million users, in order to take on Mukesh Ambani's Reliance JioInfocomm.

Airtel announced free incoming calls, SMS and no Premium on outgoing calls while roaming across India. "This marks the death of national roaming," said Gopal Vittal, MD & CEO (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel.

In a BSE filing, Airtel said daily billing will be automatically adjusted to the price of basic one day pack even for customers who don't buy a roaming pack.

With this, Airtel mobile customers will be able to carry their numbers across India and the world. Starting from April 1, 2017, Airtel customers will not be charged for data usage on national roaming.

Call charges have been reduced by upto 90 per cent to as low as Rs 3 per minute and data charges by upto 99 per cent to Rs 3 per MB across roaming destinations.

"At Airtel, we are changing the international roaming paradigm. As an industry, operators across the world must collaborate to remove the cost barrier to roaming and offer customers the convenience of staying connected", said Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of GSMA.

Here is what Bharti Airtel has planned for its customers:

* Simplify activation and billing for consumers who travel overseas

* Free incoming calls/ SMSes on national roaming 

* No premium on outgoing calls

* No domestic roaming charges on its network for both voice and data services