Starting a fresh war in the prepaid mobile segment, Tata Teleservice on Wednesday launched free outgoing local calls to other Tata Indicom mobile or fixed phones for two years without recharging while Bharti Airtel unveiled life-time prepaid scheme at Rs 1188 to be paid in monthly instalments of Rs 99 for a year.
While the Tata offer of 'Don't Stop Mobile' gives free incoming calls for two years without recharging, the calls to other networks are charged at Rs 1.80 a minute local and Rs 3 a minute for STD.
"The facility is subject to maximum 3600 minutes and subscribers will also be provided with an initial talk time of Rs 10 for calls to other phones," circle operating officer, Delhi and NCR, of TTSL, Debashish Sur, said.
At present, as per TRAI regulation, subscribers have to recharge once in six months to be counted as a new customer and operators who have offered free lifetime incoming calls have also asked the customers to recharge biannually to be connected.
Under the Airtel offer, a customer will have to pay Rs 99 a month for a year to stay mobile for life and there will be full talk-time on subsequent recharges except paying service tax, according to a company statement.
The call charges are the same as applicable to lifetime prepaid plans. No talk-time will be offered, local calls will be charged at Rs 1.99 a minute and all STD calls will be charged at Rs 2.99 a minute.
"For just 12 monthly instalments of Rs 99, an Airtel mobile user could continue to receive calls for a lifetime without having to recharge or worry about the validity period of the coupon," Sanjay Kapoor, joint president, mobility, Bharti Airtel said.
In case of TTSL, Sur said there was no six-month-commitment and the subscribers were free to recharge with any recharge voucher starting at Rs 50 and use the value till the entire the validity period, with a 100 per cent talk-time.
The company has tied up with a number of handset vendors like Haier and Kyocera and its own handset Indicom Star. These handsets are priced at Rs 2300-3800.
The prepaid wireless market now seem to be poised for free outgoing calls scheme.
Cellular operator Idea earlier this year started offering 'First 2 Minutes Free' offer on all outgoing calls to local and STD numbers, for its prepaid as well as post-paid customers.
Reliance Communications Ventures also has a 'Free Outgoing Calls' package that comes with calls worth Rs 2000.
These packages apply on purchasing new handsets from the company and also come with lower local and STD call charges.
Tata Teleservices itself has a free outgoing calls offering under one of its scheme but that is only applicable to mobile-to-mobile calls.
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