Airtel announces WFH plans for businesses

Telecom service provider Airtel has offered a special work-from-home plan for businesses operating from home. It allows enterprises to customise their service based on needs, Airtel Business, the B2B arm of Bharti Airtel, said on Monday. “Work@Home” plan provides services such as corporate broadband, 4G data SIM with free G-Suite, Corporate Mi-Fi with free G-Suite among others. Airtel also said that this new solution with seamless connectivity, collaboration tools and security as an integrated solution enables a fully secure ‘office like experience at home’.Airtel Work@Home isn’t restrictive in nature. Users can opt ultrafast corporate broadband with up to 1Gbps speed, high speed 4G corporate Mi-Fi devices with complimentary G Suite pack, corporate postpaid mobile plans with complimentary G Suite Pack 4G Data SIM with complimentary G Suite and MPLS over Airtel 4G. Immersive collaboration tools offered under this new solution include popular services such as Google Meet, Cisco Webex and Zoom. And for security, it is provider provisioned VPN.

“These are unprecedented times and businesses are adapting  to  the  evolving  environment  with  new  ways  of  working.  For  a  large  proportion  of  employees, working from their homes is set to become the new normal. Airtel Work@Home is yet another innovation to ensure that our B2B customers are able to empower their people with best-in-class connectivity and digital tools to drive business continuity,” Ajay Chitkara, Director & CEO-Airtel Business said.

The Airtel Corporate Broadband starts at Rs 799, Priority 4G Data SIM with Free G-Suite at Rs 399, and Corporate Mi-Fi with Free G-Suite with 50GB 4G data per month starting Rs 399 plus Rs 2,000 (one-time device cost). In addition, Airtel is offering priority 4G network to all its Platinum corporate postpaid customers and cutting-edge voice over Wi-Fi (VoWifi) technology to provide superior indoor coverage.

Some of the key advantages Airtel has highlighted include flexibility to bundle a wide range of services based on employee-specific remote connectivity requirements and bulk procurement on a company-paid model. It helps combines the strength of Airtel’s robust pan-India network offerings – 4G mobile, FTTH broadband, MPLS and VPN for secure remote access with industry-leading collaboration and productivity tools. Lastly, this solution also offers service assurance and faster deployment. Airtel has dedicated call centre and fault resolution teams to address Work@Home customers. Airtel Business serves over 2500 large enterprises along with 500,000 plus MSMEs.

Earlier this month, Reliance Jio had launched new work-from-home prepaid data plans to meet higher demand of data from subscribers amid locdkown. The latest plans offered 33 per cent more value over competition’s annual Rs 2,399 plan. Rs 2,399 plan offers 2 GB of high speed internet data  per day for validity of 365 days. It is an addition to the Rs 2,121 plan with validity of 336 days. Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) had also launched a promotional broadband plan during  coronavirus lockdown which  included 5GB data per day at 10Mbps speed.

—Business Today