After the introduction of the combo offerings in the prepaid segment in the post-Reliance Jio era, the consumers had many choices. However, in late 2018, the telecom operators introduced a lot of long term offerings too. These long term plans offered a single recharge for the entire year or for six months, which users could do to ensure continuous usage for 365 days straight. This was in contrast to the plans which come with 28 days validity. Bharti Airtel has a number of plans which come with 28 days validity, whereas the same benefits have been multiplied and are available as long term plans for the Airtel subscribers. Read our take below to know which one you should choose among the two.
Rs 1,699 Prepaid Plan vs Rs 169 Prepaid Plan
Now when these long-term offerings were introduced, Airtel had introduced a handful of such plans to lure the consumers. However, among these, the most popular offering was the Rs 3,999 prepaid plan which has been discontinued now. When Airtel introduced the Rs 3,999 plan the benefits of the plan included free unlimited calling and 300GB data for 365 days. This meant that the Rs 3,999 plan did not come with any daily FUP limit on data. However, the only year-long plan which is now available on Airtel portfolio is the Rs 1,699 plan only.
The Rs 1,699 plan is the only long term plan which has stayed in the Airtel postpaid portfolio, and it offers 1GB data per day, unlimited calling and more. In addition to this, the plan also offers a subscription to Airtel TV premium, Zee5, HOOQ, New 4G device cashback, one year of Norton Mobile Security and Wynk Music as well. On the other hand, the plan providing 1GB data per day with a shorter validity is the Rs 169 prepaid plan which offers 1GB daily data, unlimited calling for 28 days. Now the obvious question that the consumers will have is whether or not the long term plan is a more economical choice.
To that, we would say that the Rs 1,699 plan offers 365GB data in the entire year and it does so at the rate of Rs 4.65 per GB, whereas the Rs 169 prepaid plan offers 28GB data for 28 days and it offers this at the rate of Rs 6 per GB. Therefore, it is pretty evident that over the long term, the subscriber will end up paying approximately Rs 329 more as compared to the year-long plan if they recharge with the Rs 169 plan again and again.
Alternative Plans for Rs 1,699 Prepaid Recharge
If however, the long-term plan isn’t your thing and you would still like to have an economical 1GB per day data plan, then there is the Rs 399 prepaid recharge for you. This prepaid recharge offers 1GB data per day to the consumers with 84 days validity. The per GB cost of data comes to out be at Rs 4.7 per GB, thus being approximately equal to what the users get in the long-term plan of Rs 1,699.
