Bharti Airtel unveils free voice calling packs

NEW DELHI: India's top carrier Bharti Airtel on Thursday launched two new free voice calling packs at Rs 145 and Rs 345 respectively for its prepaid customers with substantial data benefits.

These two packs add to Airtel’s wide bouquet of innovative packs and plans for customers, offering them more flexibility, the telco said in a statement.

The move comes on close heels of arch rival state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited's ( BSNL) plan to launch Rs 149 worth plan to offer unlimited local and national voice calls in the wake of Reliance Jio's lifetime voice offer.

The Rs 145 pack allows subscribers to avail 300 MB data with free local and national Airtel-to-Airtel calls with a validity of 28 days, and Rs 345 pack offers 1GB data on 4G-ready devices and free local and national to any network in the country.

ET, earlier reported that state-run BSNL is gearing to launch an unlimited voice plan with 300 MB data, akin to Jio’s offering, on January 1, 2017.

"This is another initiative from us to bring innovative bundle offers to our customers in line with our endeavour to provide the great value backed by a superior network experience," Ajai Puri, Director – Market Operations (India & South Asia), Bharti Airtel said.

Sunil Mittal-driven Bharti Airtel leads the telecom market with 260 million mobile customers in India, and is followed telcos such as Vodafone India, Idea Cellular and BSNL.