New Delhi, Dec. 18: Going abroad? How about buying calling cards in India — which you pay for in rupees — before you board that plane so that you can make calls back home at a fraction of the cost?
The Bharti group is making a stab at what it perceives as a burgeoning business opportunity with a special calling card for Haj pilgrims that will allow them to make calls from Saudi Arabia to loved ones in India at a discount of 40 per cent.
IndiaOne, Bharti’s long-distance telephony service provider, has decided to launch a HomeTouch Saudia Arabia card that will be available in the market from Friday.
Every year, 1 lakh Indians travel to Mecca on pilgrimage and often have to go through the turmoil of looking for calling cards to make phone calls back home.
This is just the beginning. Bharti is already in talks with telephony companies in other countries that will allow travellers from India to use these cards when they go abroad. One big advantage is that you won’t have to waste your precious dollars on buying calling cards when you go abroad.
“Along with the special card for Haj pilgrims, we will also offer an international card for specific continents and countries. We are working on it and the details will be released soon,” a senior marketing executive of Bharti Telesonic said.
IndiaOne is also launching the HomeTouch International and HomeTouch UAE cards for Indians travelling to high traffic destinations such as the US, Europe, Southeast Asia, Asia Pacific and the UAE.
The IndiaOne HomeTouch International card (covering 39 destinations) will be available in two denominations of Rs 540 and Rs 216. The UAE special is available for Rs 540. The pulse duration for all is 60 seconds. The savings in HomeTouch International card is about 80 per cent compared with international roaming mobile charges.
The IndiaOne HomeTouch Saudi Arabia card will be available to Indian travellers in the denomination of Rs 648 (20 minutes of calling time) and Rs 341 (10 minutes of calling time). The card will be available at all Haj houses, special Haj terminal at international airports and with leading travel agents.
With the HomeTouch calling card, customers will be able to call India from Saudi Arabia at almost one-third the price of calling from a roaming mobile.
The calling card uses the Intelligent Network (IN) platform, which ensures compatibility of the card to telecom networks abroad.
“It is a simple process where we use the foreign network for a commission to be charged based on each call. The IN platform will accredit the card in the foreign network,” said a Bharti Telesonic technical executive.
IndiaOne is India’s first private national and international long-distance service provider that does business through Bharti Telesonic.
“IndiaOne was instrumental in bringing down the exorbitant long-distance rates in the country by half and made STD/ISD affordable in India. It now aims to take this on a global level in association with worldwide communication networks,” a senior executive of Bharti Telesonic said.
