Airtel New Plans: Prepaid Prices Hiked, Long-Term Tariffs Start at Rs. 1,498

Airtel new plans were announced over weekend by the telco, and the revised tariff plans for prepaid services are now live. Bharti Airtel followed Vodafone Idea, which also announced its updated prepaid plans on Sunday. The only remaining telco with a significant market share is Jio, and while the RIL-owned operator has also announced a hike, it hasn't detailed its new tariffs. As we said, the revised Airtel prepaid plans are now live, having come into effect from Tuesday, December 3, 2019. Airtel new plan prices start from Rs. 19 and go up to Rs. 2,398. They offer benefits such as unlimited voice calling support as well as bundled SMS messages and data allocation. Similar to Airtel and Vodafone Idea, Reliance Jio also announced that it is set to increase its tariff by up to 40 percent through the new 'All-in-One' prepaid plans.

The updated prepaid plans represent tariff increases in the range of 50 paise per day to Rs. 2.85 per day, Airtel said through a press statement. The update doesn't bring any notable changes to benefits that the New Delhi-headquartered operator usually offers to its subscribers. This means that there will still be perks from Airtel Thanks as well as access to Wynk Music. There are antivirus protection and device protection bundles with most of the revised Airtel prepaid plans.

Airtel new prepaid plans

As per the latest revision, Airtel has updated some of the popular unlimited prepaid plans, including the Rs. 129, Rs. 169, Rs. 249, and Rs. 448. There are also updates to long-term prepaid plans such as the Rs. 998 and Rs. 1,699 that offer unlimited voice calls, data bundle, and SMS message benefits for as many as 365 days.

Airtel's revised portfolio has the Rs. 19 prepaid plan as the cheapest option to avail unlimited voice calling along with limited data benefits. The updated Rs. 19 Airtel prepaid plan offers unlimited voice calling benefits, 150MB data, and 100 SMS messages per day for two days. The same plan has so far offered 200MB data allocation. Similarly, the Rs. 129 prepaid plan that was offering unlimited voice calls, 300 SMS messages per day, and 2GB data for 28 days has been revised to Rs. 148. The Rs. 249 prepaid plan has also been increased to Rs. 298.

Specifically for subscribers looking to avail long-term prepaid plans, Airtel has hiked the Rs. 998 prepaid plan to Rs. 1,498 with benefits such as unlimited voice calling, 3,600 SMS messages, and 24GB data allocation for 356 days. The Rs. 1,699 Airtel prepaid plan has also been increased to Rs. 2,398 with unlimited voice calling, 100 SMS messages per day, and 1.5GB data on a daily basis for 365 days.

To recall, Airtel followed Vodafone Idea and announced a hike in its prepaid tariffs last month. The two operators reported combined losses of Rs. 74,000 crores in the quarter ending September 2019.

Vodafone Idea on Sunday announced the revision in its prepaid plans that will also come into effect from Tuesday, just like the revised Airtel prepaid plans. The updated Vodafone plans will be available between Rs. 149 and Rs. 2,399.

Similar to Vodafone Idea and Airtel, Reliance Jio also announced its plans to increase its prepaid tariffs by up to 40 percent. The operator, however, claimed that it will offer up to 300 percent additional benefits through its revised prepaid plans. As we mentioned, Jio hasn't detailed the new tariffs yet.