Tariff War : How Airtel Reacts

Tariff War is going on in India's wireless market and see how Airtel reacts to 'Mobile Tariff War' in recent times. (Using Kolkata circle's tariff)

In June 2009: Rs 102 STV offers all local calls @60p/min for 180 days

In September 2009: Rs 41 STV offers all local calls @50p/min for 1 yr.

In October 2009: Rs 64 STV offers all onnet local&STD calls @1p/sec and all offnet local&STD calls @1.2p/sec for 1 yr. (i.e. 60p/min onnet and 72p/min offnet !)

In November 2009: Rs 54 offers all local&STD calls @50p/min for 1 yr

In December 2009: Rs32 offers all local&STD calls @50p/min for 1 yr

So Airtel's trend is reduction in STV values & increase in tariff validity but no drastic reduction of tariff.

Airtel told that they will not response to tariff war, yes they don't. Bcz call rate/sms rate is still high on Airtel. While Reliance offers 1p/sms (local/national/on roaming) for monthly commitment of Rs11, Airtel charges Re1 for local & Rs1.50 for national sms ! But Airtel had to roll out Per-Second billing & slashed roaming rate also just to match others(Read Tata DocoMo & Reliance)! I guess if Reliance was not there, Indian Telecom market would not be like now! and Tata DocOMo did roll outPay-As-You-Use tariffs.

But see now local & STD call rate is same, so reduction in STD calls only , but local call rate still has space to be cut down ! Well MTS reached a bottom with 1p/2sec with Rs30/month and/or Rs95 for lifelong ! Termination charge is 20p/min , if it is lowered down, tariff will be more cheaper !