Following the footsteps of Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular had earlier announced that the telco is doing away with the domestic roaming charges. As a result, Idea subscribers will be able to receive unlimited voice calls while on roaming for, i.e., without paying any extra roaming charges for the incoming calls starting April 1st.
Idea had also announced a set of International Roaming value packs which more or less are quite similar to Airtel’s International Roaming packs. That said, Airtel users still have an advantage on their side in comparison to Idea users.
How? Let’s say you happen to visit a country unplanned and for some unknown reasons you forgot to subscribe for an International Roaming plan. For instances like these (or even if you are a regular international roaming customer without a roaming pack), Airtel has an automatic adjustment mechanism wherein if your billing amount for a particular day (in a given country) reaches the price of a one day pack for that country, you will be automatically moved to the 1-day pack.
For the unknown, Airtel is offering unlimited incoming calls, 300MB data, 100 free minutes to India, and 100 free SMSs per day with 1-day validity for Rs. 651. These prices are for the USA (they may vary depending on the country). Post the given limit; users will be charged at Rs. 3/min and Rs. 3/MB for voice calls and data respectively. Now, the automatic conversion comes in quite handy at times especially when you travel unplanned.
That’s something Idea is not offering yet. Also, do note that the automatic conversion on Airtel is not live yet. It will come into effect starting April 1st.
Also, Airtel said that no premium would be applied to outgoing calls while on domestic roaming. Whereas Idea said that its customers “will be able to make outgoing calls, SMS freely at affordable rates while roaming anywhere in India.” Now, we have no idea what “affordable rates” mean just yet. But, we will keep you posted as soon as we get the information.
Also, for Idea subscribers who are wondering, data tariff and data pack benefits of the home circle will be available while on domestic roaming without any extra charges. Sadly, we can’t confirm if the same holds true for voice calls as well.
What do you think about Idea’s national and international roaming plan in comparison to that of Airtel’s? Do you think Airtel’s plan is better or Idea’s? Let us know in the comments section below.
