Another group calling scheme: Airtel Friends

A new concept can hardly be a concept in the Indian Telecom Market. That’s because the idea is replicated by the other operators in a week or so. Also all operators are all set to target the youth of India. With BPL going for a complete makeover just to be popular in the youth segment.

Airtel follows the same herd and has come up with Airtel Friends (a prepaid card). The scheme provides benefits of calling 5 Airtel numbers at 15 paise. These 5 numbers have to be chosen before hand and this forms your gang. The name is a bit defying as people often think that this scheme provides free inter calling, but sorry this is an individual scheme and thus doesn’t provide inter calling benefits. Another benefit is that you can send SMS’s @ 15 paise to everyone, which makes it a good scheme to put your hands on. Call rates would be a bit high with the operator charging Rs. 1.5 to all other numbers, but Airtel compensates for this setback by charging only a rupee for STD calls during night and normal rate of Rs. 2.4 during the day.

Apart from the STD benefit, users can also enjoy night calling to all Airtel numbers at 15 paise. The card costs Rs. 99 and provides a good deal.

UPDATE: One of our reader points out that there is also a daily decrement of Re. 1. More details here.

We Say

We say, that for Rs. 99, this is a decent deal if we consider the SMS rates and also the STD rates. Thus if you have your close ones using Airtel, you can have them in the 5 members. The call rates to the 5 friends and to other Airtel customers during night are the same and thus choose your 5 friends wisely. However the call rates to other numbers are a pinch, making the effectiveness fade a bit.