Airtel stops free incoming calls
If you’re using Airtel prepaid sim you might have noticed the new I/C (Incoming call) and O/G (Outgoing call) validity while checking your main balance using *123# or *121#.
Yes, Airtel has stopped the free lifetime incoming calls to its customers. Now everyone has to do a minimum recharge of Rs.35/month to continue receiving incoming calls and also making outgoing calls.
Airtel one of the leading private telecommunication network in India has stopped their free incoming calls to its users.
Bharti Airtel has witnessed a decline in the profitability for the past two years due to strong competition. Their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is low when compared with its competitors. In order to increase their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User), they are making some changes in their plans.
Recently Bharti Airtel’s chief executive, Gopal Vittal have said that
“So these Arpus are at sort of low double digit… In the last one and a half months in three circles in Tamil Nadu, UP West and Punjab, we’ve introduced minimum Arpu-led plans at the low end… We’ve seen some good results in and we’re now rolling it just now across the country—in fact, in the last seven days, we have already rolled out across the country.”
He further added that
“Letting go of customers who recharge less than ₹35 a month, particularly those who mostly receive incoming calls or do very small recharges, would also free up Airtel’s network and ease congestion. This would in turn improve quality of service for high-paying users,”
Of around 330 million airtel customers 100 million customers have very low rate of ARPU.
So customers have to recharge for minimum of Rs. 35 which valids upto 28 days to make outgoing calls and receive incoming calls. Even if you have enough talktime in main balance you won’t receive incoming calls unless you recharge for a monthly pack.
They have even changed their top-up plans of Rs. 20, Rs. 50, Rs. 100… Now they only have Rs. 10, Rs. 5000 and Rs. 1000 of unlimited talk-time.
Vodafone/Idea had also been following the similar plans.
Finally low ARPU users will be dealing with this issue. They have to pay minimum of Rs.35 every month or they have to port their numbers to different network.
So what are you going to do? Comment Below.