AIRTEL HIKES CALL TARIFF IN 6 CIRCLES

India's largest mobile operator, Bharti Airtel has
announced a shocking increase in some of its call tariffplans, up to 20%. The hike, applicable for both prepaid and post paid customers, is effective in six circles including New Delhi, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Interestingly, the hike comes at a time when
all the major brands are touting their services as “low-
cost” and “ultra-cheap”.
According to TOI, the company has raised the prepaid
tariff rates of its 'Advantage' pack. The Advantage
pack subscribers will now have to shell out 60p per
minute for local and STD calls to mobile phones and
90p for calls to landlines. In addition, the local and
national SMSes will be charged at Rs. 1 and Rs. 1.50
respectively.
The current users will pay for new rates after the
validity of incumbent voucher ends. NDTV reports
that the most of the calls will now cost some 1.2p per
second. Earlier, it cost 1paise per second. The
company, however, hasn't increased tariff of its
Freedom pack, which is based on per second billing.
It's notable that Bharti is the second company to raise
tariffs after Ta DoCoMo. Docomo prices were hiked in
Tamil Nadu recently.
The mobile operating companies have been previously trying to woo customers with their “ultra-cheap” and “free” offers. However, it seemed the companies had
been bearing the brunt of that low-cost packages.
From the mobile network operators' point of view,such packages haven't helped them push their revenues much as they would have liked. The advent of 3G and mobile network portability have only added a headache for them. And adding to their woes, TRAI has been periodically coming up with new regulations.
Other telecom players are most likely to follow the suit.
However, it is quite surprising that Airtel is the first one toannounce such a hike. The company according to figures added some 2.12 million mobile subscribers in the month of June, staying on top as the largest operator in India.
Separately, Bharti Airtel and Ericsson have signed a
five-year deal under which Ericsson will manage and
optimise Airtel's mobile networks in Africa. It's notable
that it will Ericsson's first multi-country managed
services deal in Africa. Its assistance is likely to help
Airtel concentrate on its main operations of launching
new products, services and apps for some 44 million
subscribers in the continent.