Over the next couple of months, prepaid plans may lose the charm and the entire focus will again shift to the postpaid segment. After the recent tariff hike for prepaid plans, an 84-day plan with 2GB of daily data costs around Rs 700. Postpaid plans from telcos ship with a lot of data, but users will be billed on a monthly basis. For example, the Rs 499 postpaid plan from Bharti Airtel comes with 75GB data along with rollover facility up to 200GB/500GB and unlimited voice calling. The current postpaid plans from Airtel offer a sufficient amount of data and there's the rollover facility as well. For those who exhaust their allotted data limit, Airtel has two postpaid data add-ons priced at Rs 100 and Rs 200, offering up to 35GB data on top of the existing plan.
Airtel Data Add-Ons for Postpaid Users Start at Rs 100
Bharti Airtel is currently offering just four postpaid plans to the customers- Rs 499, Rs 749, Rs 999 and the Rs 1,599 plan. In some circles, the company has Rs 349 and Rs 399 entry-level postpaid plans. Airtel removed the majority of its postpaid plans a few months ago in a bid to generate more revenue from the users. While the postpaid plans of Bharti Airtel start at Rs 499, the data add-ons are available at a starting price of just Rs 100.
The first data add-on plan from Bharti Airtel costs Rs 100 and it offers 15GB of 2G/3G/4G data, whereas the Rs 200 add-on pack ships with 35GB data. That said, there's a piece of disappointing news for the users who opt for these add-ons from Airtel. The telco clearly states the data benefit of the add-ons will be limited to the current bill cycle.
For the unaware, Airtel allows users to carry forward data up to 500GB in their account, but the data of add-ons will not be carry forwarded. So if you've 10GB data remaining from the add-on, it will lapse at the end of your current billing cycle. The data add-on price will be automatically added to the customer's monthly rental. For instance, if you're on the Rs 499 postpaid plan and selects the Rs 100 data add-on, then the next month's rental would be Rs 499+Rs 100 (excluding taxes). These data add-ons can be activated via the Airtel Thanks app.
Airtel Postpaid Plans Likely to Get a Revision Very Soon
Bharti Airtel already raised prepaid tariff prices on December 1, 2019. Right now, we're not sure what Airtel is planning to implement in the coming days, but most likely, the current postpaid plans from the company will also receive a hike. As mentioned above, Airtel's postpaid plans start at Rs 499 and they go all the way up to Rs 1,599, but we may soon see the telco removing the base Rs 499 plan.
We're expecting the company to raise the price of Rs 499 postpaid plan to Rs 649 with similar benefits on offer. All the Airtel postpaid plans ship with Airtel Thanks benefits like Netflix subscription for three months, one-year of Amazon Prime membership, ZEE5 Premium subscription every month, Shaw Academy courses and Airtel Xstream Premium app subscription worth Rs 1,200. When it comes to postpaid plans, Airtel is currently the leader, but the tariff hike means Jio's Rs 199 plan may have an upper hand now.
