As expected after Idea Cellular, Airtel extends black out days on voice calls along with SMS. It is already shown on Airtel’s website and it says: ‘ On Black Out days all person to person SMS and Voice calls will be charged at normal rates and not at discounted rates’.
On Black out days,No SMS packs benefits will be applicable. Normal SMS rates of Re 1 for local SMS, Rs 1.50 for National SMS and Rs 5 for International SMS and voice call rate of customer tariff plan will apply between 00.00 hrs to 24.00 hr.
Airtel SMS and Voice Black out days 2013
- 1st January – New year
- 14th February – Valentine Day
- 27th March – Holi
- 3rd November – Diwali
- 31st December – New year eve
Inputs : Aamir
shivu karnataka December 31, 2012 at 11:08 pm
Reliance started today base call rate 1Rs/min. bsnl charged as a tariff plane
gursimran December 31, 2012 at 10:47 pm
Rel is also doing same in punjab.
Jagannath December 31, 2012 at 11:16 am
TATA Docomo also joins the group, starts Blackout days for voice calls as well. Check out their website… Customer care–>information—>Blackout days.
Jagannath December 31, 2012 at 11:18 am
Check out in the “Show T&C” on that page.
Manash December 30, 2012 at 2:18 pm
Also Reliance strated blackout days for call.check website.That means all big operators r going to charge at base rate in blackout days.
Manash December 30, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Aircel starting blackout voice calls 1st Jan from 2013.Check the website aircel.com under blackout day tab.Plz update this
Jagannath December 29, 2012 at 8:33 pm
Better use VoIP Providers, they are providing call rates as low as Re.1/min (Some may be even cheaper) for all mobile & landline calls across India.
atanu December 29, 2012 at 1:14 pm
reliance also join. i got sms yesterday from reliance.
with a step ahead starting from 31st december 2012.
V.P.Guru December 29, 2012 at 6:55 am
TATA Docomo is going charge only for SMS on Blockout Days.
saurabh jain December 28, 2012 at 6:27 pm
bsnl also joins the same chorus by applying blackout days on voice tariff also. see following link:-
upe.bsnl.co.in/schemes/Press_Release_24122012.pdf
Dhillon December 27, 2012 at 10:35 pm
today we need a healthy competition between telecom operates.. After MNP they all working same way..
sujit December 27, 2012 at 6:56 pm
got this sms from airtel today.
Guess the blackout is for SMS only..
Dijiye apne priye janon ko New Year ki shubhkamnayen! 31-Dec aur 1-Jan ko airtel mobile se bheje gaye SMS, plan anusar charge kiye jayenge.
Esmail December 27, 2012 at 3:42 pm
@rudradeep
Kindly note Reliance has joined in this practice as well, today I got an SMS on my Reliance CDMA number which said all Local/STD SMS and calls will be charged at base tariff on 31st Dec and 1st Jan. Not sure if this is the case with Reliance GSM as well, but CDMA for sure.
vineet December 28, 2012 at 6:53 am
yes,it also for reliance gsm also.
AVIJIT BANERJEE December 27, 2012 at 8:58 am
Although i am not a customer of AIRTEL, VODA & IDEA but I can offer my opinions. But I am proud to be a valuable customer of TTSL(Docomo) & MTS. The leading Pan India operators as stated above are implementing blocking both free calls (in the plans in prepaid or postpaid of Customers ) and blocking all calls at reduced rates, is outrightly a bad move and discouraging too just to dent on the mind set/wallet of their Customers/subscribers.
The day is not far away when RELIANCE (CDMA & GSM) will similarly adopt. In my opinion, due to exit of UNINOR(in few circles), VIDEOCON(in few circles) and dim light of MTS(they are struggling for continuation of mob services), leading operators in the having sizeable market share are began to start monopolize.
rohith December 27, 2012 at 12:43 am
it is an unfair move which will hurt the customers it is good that i am with another provider
Esmail December 27, 2012 at 12:07 am
I wonder why Airtel, Vodafone and Idea don’t merge into one big company, they anyway have practically the same tariffs and vouchers and follow the same policies. Merging into one big conglomerate will solve all their spectrum sharing issues too, they wont need to resort to ICRA and will become the second pan India 3G operator.
Manish Adhikari December 26, 2012 at 9:54 pm
Airtel very costly nationwide.
They also already increased their 2G GPRS tariff in Delhi-NCR region.
i.e., 600MB/21days at Rs.98/-
1GB/28days at Rs.125/-.
Time to port out from Airtel…..
Network is also very poor now a days…. Specially in Delhi Metro it’s signals down most of the time….
Hacker December 26, 2012 at 6:51 pm
I feel proud to say that i ve looted this company by ‘tons’ of data transfers for free (tons= mor dan 100GBs of data ,250Gigs Approx).
Fuck off cartel, airhel
pavan December 26, 2012 at 5:19 pm
As per TRAI,”(4) No access service provider shall,—
(a) fix the number of ‘black out’ days, (being the days on which free or
concessional Voice Calls/SMS offered by it under any plan/ package including
discounted scheme are not available to their telecom consumers), for a period
exceeding a maximum of five days in a calendar year;”
http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/Direction/Document/Direction%20on%20blackout%20days-14sep-2012.pdf
so free or concessional Voice Calls/SMS offered by it under any plan/ package including
discounted scheme are not available on Black out days.
You can enjoy free or concessional over Data.
Sudhakar December 26, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Hey. BSNL is charging for data also (voice, SMS, data and add-on) during these 5 days.
Arka December 26, 2012 at 9:01 pm
Even Bsnl has blackout day at 25th Dec.no other company has this.
zeeshan December 26, 2012 at 10:18 pm
But data STV works on Black our day in BSNL
Sudhakar December 27, 2012 at 5:50 am
Who told?.
saiesh December 26, 2012 at 4:31 pm
Request all the mobile customers to switch off their mobile on this blackout days, The customers should avoid sending messages/make calls on this days
Apurv December 26, 2012 at 4:27 pm
chor chor mausere bhai
Sathish, Gobichettipalayam December 26, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Friends, As per TRAI Direction :
No operator in India, should not allowed to provide the FREE/Discounted rates for SMS, Calls and Data during their 5 block-out days.
So we don’t blindly – blame just telecom service providers.
AJAY DUTTA December 26, 2012 at 3:51 pm
bsnl already started such anti-consumer scheme… yesterday 25-dec-12. all kind of packs viz; gprs/sms/voice/etc didnt work. money was deducted from main balance… so in this case, private players were laging behind from bsnl..
zeeshan December 26, 2012 at 4:46 pm
Only calls and SMS are charged according to base tariff. GPRS STV works on black-out days.
Raghu December 26, 2012 at 2:34 pm
This anti-consumer move is so bad. We have to complain to TRAI/DOT/PG PORTAL otherwise everyone will start looting like this including the so called social service provider BSNL also.
Ved December 26, 2012 at 2:07 pm
I think operators forgot about internet packs otherwise till now they have started blackout days foe internet packs also….
Pranajit December 26, 2012 at 2:02 pm
No issue.as they bleed us everyday so there will be 6 or 5 more days extra from now on.
but provision should have been also for us,the consumer.
Like every call drop,the respective ISP will be severely fined.noncompliance of 98% uptime speed should have to be dealt the same ferocity.
lets see what the cartel have to say about it.
Jay December 26, 2012 at 11:35 am
BSNL chennai has been in the lead, in this, and they’ve been doing this for years. Worst part was, even charges to FnF numbers were increased !!
If the STV charges are not applicable on the Blackout Days, then the STV validity must also be increased accordingly. I recharge today for a STV with 30 days validity & if I there are 2 Blackout days, in between, then the Validity must be given for 32 days!!!
These Dacoits will never do this, and we have no option but to accept it !!!
kerala December 26, 2012 at 1:16 pm
Dear Jay.. if bsnl chennai is doing the same pls file an rti on this regard.. black out days are applicable for sms in kerala bsnl.. being a govt company u have the right to question the wrongdoings…
fusia December 26, 2012 at 4:03 pm
I called the CC regarding that. My point being for an unlimited voice recharge for 30 days on 4th dec I am getting 3 days less validity (25th, 31stdec and 1st jan) that is 10% of the original is cut out of the validity. They argued that no one is complaining except me and they do sometime provide extra or free talktime.
Rajesh December 26, 2012 at 11:34 am
Even reliance started this method…today i received msg stating blackout for calls and sms
Srinivas December 26, 2012 at 10:31 am
This is called real blackmail of the cartel — AVI — everyone takes these voice packs or sms packs to talk or call on less rates during festivals and this cartel is trying to make money out of this , this is emotional blackmail, i think all of us have to boycott these telecom companies
Sougata Das December 26, 2012 at 9:55 am
This is absolutely ridiculous. Why TRAI allowing these operators to make changes at the end of the year. Also TRAI need to implement the NTP2012 asap.
Nirakar Panda December 26, 2012 at 9:41 am
BSNL Kolkata, also joined the Team but with silence and “as usual” without any prior information to the customers. I have been charged for voice call as per base tariff on 25th December 2012.
Hope TRAI will act something on this, if they really care for the customers.
dinesh December 26, 2012 at 9:29 am
blame bsnl for this robbery.they started it years back .
Tomas December 26, 2012 at 8:31 am
Aab vodafone ki bari
Arup Dey December 26, 2012 at 8:26 am
As expected.with in few days roaming charges uthne wala hai,to in companyo to kahi na kahi se apna fayda thik rakhna hai.
uski hisab se to ye thiki hi hai.
drkavint December 26, 2012 at 8:17 am
time for reliance,mts to get mnp customers ..they can get customers by offering sms at 10p and calls at 50p….
raju December 26, 2012 at 11:19 am
Reliance?? For just getting 5 days of low calling benefits who is going to bear this company for another 360 days? I’m sure they will join this bandwagon.
MOHANRAJ December 26, 2012 at 7:58 am
All telecom companies in india. Big big robbery teams.
V.P.Guru December 26, 2012 at 7:54 am
Everyone knows that, ”it will happen”
Alamgir December 26, 2012 at 7:04 am
Chor-Chor mausere bhai!
Sudhakar December 26, 2012 at 6:33 am
It is not so.
I checked in airtel.in/wps/wcm/connect/airtel.in/airtel.in/home/foryou/mobile/prepaid+services/tariffs/
I chose the circel and clicked the services (near voucher rates). Then I searched for blackout… word. It is mentioned only blackout SMS.
raju December 26, 2012 at 11:14 am
Don’t worry.They will update it shortly.
Saleem December 26, 2012 at 2:30 am
“kharbuze ko dekh kharbuze ne rang badla”
anupam December 26, 2012 at 12:24 am
Airtel following ideas of idea. all Operators here follow each other
sujit December 26, 2012 at 12:24 am
rudradeep bhai
wasnt it already there with airtel??
And another thing, whats the base call tariff ?? Will it be according to plan or flat re 1 and rs 1.5 ?
Rudradeep Biswas December 26, 2012 at 10:26 am
in most cases its Re1 for local calls, Rs 1.5 for STD. But on per sec it will be 1.3p/s or 1.5p/s or 2p/s depending upon the circles !
anupam December 26, 2012 at 12:22 am
Airtel following idea again. They are follow each other