Africa roams to Asia free on Airtel

Bharti Airtel has commenced the offering of free roaming of incoming calls on Airtel Africa.

Vice President, Corporate Communications & Public Relations at Airtel Africa, Mr. Mike Okwiri, said in a press statement made available to DigitalSENSEBusiness News, described this as the worlds’ first intercontinental roaming facility, which offers free incoming calls, hence, leveraging Airtel’s network reach in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

He explained that this would be beneficial to African businessmen, tourists and students traveling to the Indian sub-continent.

As said by him, Bharti Airtel, a leading global telecommunications services provider with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa, today introduced the world’s first free intercontinental incoming roaming service by including India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to its current bouquet of one-network services for its African customers.

Airtel customers already avail this facility across the company’s mobile network in 17 countries across Africa.

Airtel customers in Africa, he said, will not need to register for the one-network service or buy new SIM cards as they will now be automatically provisioned as ‘citizens’ of Airtel’s borderless network across 20 countries in Africa and Asia.

This, he said, offers opportunities to a base of 60 million Airtel customers in Africa to roam at affordable tariffs in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

“By offering free incoming calls whilst roaming, the service ups the ante for global telecom providers as the seamless service across continents is a world-first amongst mobile service providers. This will greatly benefit the travelling population, consisting of tourists, corporates, businessmen and students who want to keep in touch with people back home,” he said.

Chief Marketing Officer, Airtel Africa, Andre Beyers was quoted as saying that mobile communication has the ability to connect communities, hence, Airtel’s one-network now gives customers the ability to drastically reduce roaming charges whilst travelling within and across the two continents.

“Our goal is to provide affordable and relevant mobile communication solutions across borders,” Beyers said.

DigitalSENSEBusiness News recalls that on African continent, Airtel has 17 countries on its one-network, which allows Airtel customers to use their local Airtel SIM cards whilst abroad, giving them access to attractive rates for calls made, access data, enjoy value added services and recharge using local top up vouchers in the country visited.

The service is poised to benefit increasing intra-regional trade between Africa and the South Asian nations which currently stands at over USD 60 Billion. Equally, the number of travellers between Africa and the 3 countries has been growing. India is the main destination for most of African travelers for trade, its tertiary educational institutions and affordable medical facilities.

Remmy Nweke

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