Airtel 3G Plans, USB modems/Data cards and Tariff in India explained in simple terms
In a nutshell
Airtel has launched 3G services in Bengaluru.
▶ Plans come in 3 flavours – Sachet, Standard and Flexi plans.
▶ You can estimate your actual Internet usage using Internet Usage Calculator provided by airtel
▶ 3G USB modem/Data cards which come in 2 variants – 3.6Mbps and 7.2Mbps.
▶ To activate 3G Services on your cell, just send a simple sms as 3G to 121 (toll free).
3G - is the next generation communication technology that gives you the power of higher speeds to enjoy multimedia services , internet access, social networks, stream videos, live TV, video calls and more.
Airtel has kicked off its 3G services in the 
Silicon Valley – Bengaluru last week. The rest of the 3G circles in India are being targeted within the next couple of months.
Sachet and Standard plans - These 3G data plans start from Rs. 9 for 10MB with 1 day validity and go all the way upto Rs. 750 for 2GB with 30 days validity. You can see them in detail in the table below.
| Data Packs | Free Usage | Validity |
| Sachet – 3G Pack 9 | 10 MB | 1 day |
| Sachet – 3G Pack 60 | 65 MB | 3 days |
| Standard – 3G Pack 103 | 100MB | 30 days |
| Standard – 3G Pack 200 | 250 MB | 30 days |
| Standard – 3G Pack 450 | 600 MB | 30 days |
| Standard – 3G Pack 750 | 2 GB | 30 days |
Airtel has another interesting plan which is my choice of all these plans.
Flexi-shield plan – meant for people who don’t want to pay more than Rs. 2,000 per month. In this plan, users pay Rs. 650 a month and are given 1.25GB of free data usage. Once you exceed the free usage, you will be charged 1p for every 100kb you use (or 80p for every 1MB of usage) till your bill value reaches Rs. 2,000. After that point you will still be able to use 3G on your mobile device but your speed will sharply drop to 20kbps.
I am not sure of how much surfing or download I will do!
Well, Airtel has a solution for this problem of yours too. Its called the Internet Usage Calculator . Depending upon your surfing and download pattern, the internet usage calculator presents you a rough idea that will help you in choosing an appropriate plan.
3G USB modem/Data Cards
3G USB modem/Data cards which come in 2 variants – 3.6Mbps and 7.2Mbps . The prices are yet to be fixed and we will let you know as soon as we get hold of it.
How to activate Airtel 3G on your mobile?
For activating the 3G Services on your mobile phone, just send a simple sms as 3G to 121 (toll free). Soon, you will get a confirmation about the activation and all 2G data plans if any activated earlier will be deactivated and the default plan of 30p / 20kb will be activated.
Last Words :
You will have to keep in mind that no plan apart from the FlexiShield plan will cap your bill amount. So you will have to keep an eye on how much data you use, unless you want to get a shocker of a bill at the end of the month.
Refer to the FAQs to get your queries cleared>>
You can also take a look at the table below: Click on the image to enlarge.
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Category: Startups
About the Author (Author Profile)
Nikhil Chakravarthi is a Software Engineer by Profession and a Blogger by Passion. He is in Love with just one thing - Technology. He is from Silicon Valley and enjoys simple living.Comments (15)
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Sites That Link to this Post
- Airtel 3G FAQs and other likely questions answered | TechnoJourney | January 26, 2011
- Airtel 3G launched in Chennai and Coimbatore | TechnoJourney | February 4, 2011
Airtel 3G USB DataCard is best…!!
Technical Standard
HSDPA: 3GPP R5, up to 7.2 Mbps DL and 384 Kbps UL, category 5/6
UMTS: up to 384 Kbps DL and UL
EDGE: 3GPP Release4, class 12, up to 237 Kbps DL and 118Kbps UL
GPRS: up to 85, 6 Kbps DL and 42, 8 Kbps UL
Frequency Band:
GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
WCDMA/UMTS: 2100 MHz
External Interface
Antenna: Internal antenna
USB: USB interface: supporting USB 2.0 Full Speed
Power: Powered via the USB interface
SIM/USIM Card: standard 6 PIN SIM card interface, compatible with 3GPP 31.101 and
31.102
AT Interface: 3GPP TS27.005/3GPP TS27.007supported
Main Features:
Zero-CDROM auto installation: Supported
Support Voice function
Support Micri SD card up to 8-16 GB
One button connect/disconnect: Supported
Dimension (mm): 90(D)×28(W)×12(H)
SIM/USIM Pin lock: enable/disable
SMS and Data service simultaneously Operation: Supported
Operate system: Win2000/ XP/VISTA/WinCE/Google Android/Win7
Languages support: English, Italian, Simple Chinese, Traditional Chinese, more
languages could be supported upon requested
I have a micromax 7.2 channel USB stick. Can I use airtel 3G with it? Is there are unlimited plan for Airtel 3G??
Please revert me back on my mail.
You will have to crack it before use i feel Anurag. No unlimited 3G plans in airtel. .
still airtel 3g is not launched in my city.i have only EDGE network in my area.I hope they will launch airtel 3g soon in my circle.
hai nikhil,
i have a i-book (china mada)with operating system WIN CE 6.0. does airtel data card supports ?.
if no, pls tell me any data card which supports WIN CE 6.0 OS.
I have no idea about i-book Shinoob, but let me tell you onething – there are thousands of complaints against airtel 3G. Beware.
Is the data plan is same for all the states in India?
Is you know what the average speed it gives.
Extremely entertaining appreciate it, I believe your current readers would probably want even more writing such as this continue the excellent content. airtel 3G helps you work better and faster. For doing stock transactions, navigation, video conferencing and lots more on your phone.Thanks for giving a wounderful tariff given by airtel.
gr8 article
Having read this I believed it was extremely informative. it was still worthwhile!
what is the plan airtal 3g usb unlimited plan use for laptop or pc ruppes????????????