Incoming SMS When roaming Abroad VI, Airtel

[Sudheep49]

Do I get free incoming SMS during roaming in Abroad without taking a Roaming pack (with the current India Pack active and having validity )??

 

[Sivabhaskar]

As long as you have activated the International Roaming (IR) Service for your Airtel Prepaid number, you should receive your SMS-es free of charge.

1) Even if you don't have an active IR Pack for your number, as long as you have the IR Service activated for your number, you should receive free incoming SMS-es.
2) If you have an active IR Pack (any valid IR Pack for the travelling country), then even all INCOMING CALLS are free.
3) Even if you don't have an active IR Pack for your number, as long as you have the IR Service activated for your number, if you ever pick up an incoming call OR make an outgoing call OR send an outgoing SMS, Airtel will automatically activate the lowest costing daily pack for that country (so that you are not charged too much from your prepaid Main Balance by the end of the day).

So if you just want to receive incoming SMS and nothing else, then do these 2 steps:

1) Active the IR Service for your number (refer link 2 below) before your travel.
2) Before your flight takes off from India, remember to DISABLE DATA ROAMING for your Airtel Sim Card, because if your phone even accidentally uses data while travelling abroad, Airtel will automatically activate the lowest costing pack as explained in #3 above.

Links:

1) Airtel announced free incoming on international roaming. Airtel's new IR packs offer free incoming calls, free texts to India and ample data benefits along with free India calling minutes.

2) How to Activate International Roaming?

3) IR Service Frequently Asked Questions

4) IR Packs

 

[Sudheep49]

How about VI bro

 

[Sivabhaskar]

I'm not familiar with VI's IR Service/Packs. I believe you could get that information by googling it though. Even for Airtel, all the information I provided earlier were by reading Airtel website pages linked from a google search result.

 

[Esmail]

Yes incoming SMS is always free even if you don't have an IR pack active. So long as your home network has a roaming agreement with a network in the country you are visiting and you are connected to that network.

 

[Prime]

On Jio prepaid (with 666 plan), do I get free incoming SMS during roaming in Dubai/Singapore without taking any special pack?

I can port my number to Airtel if needed.

 

[sudhakar35gm]

On Jio prepaid (with 666 plan), do I get free incoming SMS during roaming in Dubai/Singapore without taking any special pack? I can port my number to Airtel if needed.

In Jio (UAE, Singapore, Malaysia and few other countries) :
Outgoing calls within the country, incoming calls, outgoing calls only to India and outgoing SMS anywhere will be charged Rs.2 each (per minute and per SMS). Topup for Rs.100 in the mai balance. Just type STOP and send to 1925 to avoid the main balance deduction if you use data without any active IR pack (I think this will work in jio). If you have performed all app updates and disabled all data intensive sync features* in India itself, then just enabling mobile data for 5 minutes outside India will not cost much unless you browse or update the apps).

* means : email apps, instant messenger apps.

Type STOP and send to 1925 (valid in all the operators except BSNL where the data facility itself will stop even if there is active data pack) to avoid the main balance deduction while in India and abroad.

Jio main balance checking (valid only within India) : Call 1299 or type BAL and send to 199
[199 might work outside India at prevailing outgoing SMS rate]

Vi : *199#

Airtel : *123# or *121*51# or *121*2#

BSNL : *123# (dial *124*2# to see the balance and validity of the ul pack and the left over data)

The USSD commands for vi, airtel and BSNL will work outside India. Better select the 2G or 3G network outside India to get better coverage and perform USSD commands.

Note :
You can use your jio SIM in the 2G only or 2G and 3G only phones or in 4G feature phones like Nokia 215 4G only outside India if the foreign network has 2G and 3G network. You have to try manually logging in 2 or 3 times in each network (after successful login, you may change the network selection mode to automatic) outside India if the phone does not automatically log into any available network.