Airtel's two new prepaid plans counter Jio, Vodafone's bid to lure subscribers

Towards the end of 2019, Bharti Airtel announced to increase its prepaid tariff rates owing to the financial stress in the telecom industry. Now the operator has launched two new recharge plans valued at Rs 379 and Rs 279 for its millions of prepaid customers. The Rs 379 plan comes with usual data, calling, and SMS benefits for a validity of 84 days whereas the Rs 279 prepaid pack offers daily data and unlimited calling along with life insurance cover.

Let's take a detailed look at what these new prepaid plans offer.

Rs 379 prepaid plan

Airtel's new Rs 379 prepaid recharge plan comes with a total of 6GB of 4G data for a validity of 84 days. The new plan also offers truly unlimited calling to all networks along with a total of 900 SMS. The telecom operator is also offering free access to Wynk Music and Airtel Xstream app with the new prepaid plan. Airtel's new Rs 379 plan competes directly with Vodafone-Idea's Rs 379 plan that comes with similar benefits.

Vodafone's Rs 379 prepaid plan offers 6GB of 4G data, truly unlimited calling, and 1,000 national SMS for a validity of 84 days. The pack comes with complimentary subscriptions to Vodafone Play and ZEE5 streaming service. Aside from additional benefits, the only difference between Airtel's and Vodafone's plan is the SMS count.

Rs 279 prepaid plan

The Rs 279 prepaid recharge plan from Airtel comes with truly unlimited on-net and off-net calling and 1.5GB of data per day for a validity of 28 days. The pack also comes with 100 national SMS per day for the validity period. Airtel is also offering additional HDFC Life Insurance cover worth Rs 4 lakh to its customers with the new Rs 279 plan. Additionally, the new prepaid pack includes free access to Wynk Music and premium content on the Airtel Xstream service.

Excluding the HDFC Life Insurance cover, the new Rs 279 prepaid plan is the same as Airtel's existing Rs 249 prepaid plan, which also offers truly unlimited calling, 1.5GB of daily data, and 100 SMS per day for 28 days.