NEW DELHI, INDIA: Bharti Airtel, Asia’s leading integrated telecom service provider, launched the ‘Freedom Plan’ for its customers.

With the launch of this plan, Airtel customers will have the freedom of choosing from a variety of plans based on their usage and calling patterns. In the ‘Freedom Plan’, Airtel customers will be charged 1 paise per second for all Local and STD calls to Airtel numbers and 1.20 paise per second for local and STD calls to other network.

Atul Bindal, President, Mobile Services, Bharti Airtel Ltd., said: "Today, our network covers 110 million customers, has 100,000 sites and is available across 4.25 lakh towns and villages in 1.5 million outlets. In keeping with our ethos of providing the best to our customers, we are delighted to offer a one second pulse to those customers who find value in this pulse."

The Freedom Plan will be available across the country in all the 4.25 lakhs towns and villages covered by the Airtel distribution network. It will be an attractive proposition for customers who desire a one-second pulse. Other customers can subscribe to the ‘Airtel Advantage’ plan that offers 50 paise per minute tariff for all calls within Airtel Network and 60 paise per minute off net.

The latest to enter the fray is Vodafone. Vodafone also announced the nationwide launch of pay per second tariff for its GSM prepaid customers.

Under the new plan, called Conversations @ 1p/sec, Vodafone subscribers can make local or STD at just 1paisa per second within the Vodafone network. For other networks, the call charge would be 1.2paise/sec.

The above plan is applicable in 10 telecom circles of Vodafone. They are: Andhra Pradesh, Chennai Metro, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Goa (except Mumbai) , Mumbai Metro, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu (except Chennai), said Vodafone in a statement.