Bharti Airtel launches ‘Smart Packs’ for international roaming

NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel announced the launch of ‘ Smart Packs’ for international roaming. The packs offer free incoming calls while allowing an Airtel subscriber to retain the phone number while travelling abroad.

A statement issued by the company further said, "the smart packs would provide up-to 200 per cent more data benefits than competing packs, so that customers are always connected without having to worry about bill shocks".

Srinivasan Gopalan, director for consumer business at Bharti explained that the company’s research had shown that in international roaming, a customer looks for convenience of carrying the same number without having to worry about "billing shocks".

"Our new international roaming Smart Packs are aimed addressing this need gap and set a new industry benchmark," he added.

The statement said, activating the pack was simple and customers could activate the pack through the Airtel website, my-Airtel app, USSD and customer contact centres.

"The advantage of these packs is that customers can activate them at any time and pay only when they actually use them," the statement added.

When compared to other international roaming solutions, Airtel provides more free data when roaming.

For instance, Matrix, an international telecom solutions provider which provides SIM cards on rental basis to mobile phone users travelling abroad, charges a rental ofs Rs 4,354 for an international SIM card for USA, while an Airtel user will have to shell out Rs 4,999 for a smart pack.

A matrix SIM card user will have free incoming but get just 1 GB of free data in comparison to an Airtel smart pack user who will get 3 GB of data.

However, a Matrix user will be able to avail 1200 minutes of free calling compared to just 300 minutes on an Airtel smart pack. The validity for both remains 30 days.