Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular increase base tariffs

Idea cellular and Bharti Airtel have increased their base tariff almost double. Airtel's base tariff has been increased from Rs.1 to Rs.2 and Idea's tariff increase from 1.2 paise to 2 paise per second (effectively 72 paise per minute to 1.20 rupees per minute). As per the reports Vodafone also going to do the similar changes inline with Bharti and Idea. Over and above this they have reduced their FRC tariff validity from current 90 days to 30 days. Also there is a 100 percentage hike on their on net tariffs (airtel to airtel and idea to idea). Earlier 1 paise per 6 seconds has been increased to 1 paise per 3 seconds.

Last month we have seen a steep hike in GPRS packs and some other value added services. Many of the value added services carries only 28 days instead of 30 days. Operators are citing various reasons for this tariff hike including the recent diesel price hike and spectrum price hike. But effectively we are going back to earlier 2008 tariffs.

Unlimited plans on postpaid are getting cheaper with this recent changes. Docomo, Reliance and Idea are providing unlimited calling on postpay with only Rs.899 (Idea and realinace carries some fair usage policy on this plan, where docomo doesn't have any IFs or BUTs). Docomo also provides local unlimited calling on prepaid with their 666 STV for one month.