Buy a 4G LTE local sim card in India

If you are traveling to India, buying a 4G LTE local sim card makes a lot of sense to save on roaming charges and receive calls from locals – hotels, cab drivers etc. Plus the data charges are quite cheap in India so why not make the most of it.

As of now only one telecom service provider sells 4G LTE enabled services in India – Airtel. You can easily get a prepaid 4G enabled SIM from any official Airtel Store. Even though SIM cards are available at several mom and pop stores, it’s better to go to an official store for quick activation. Mom and pop stores might take days to get your sim card activated. Sim cards are generally free or cost around INR50.

Documents Required:

To get an Airtel 4G LTE Prepaid (Pay as you go) connection in India, you will just need to submit a copy of your passport and a photograph. It should be activated immediately or in a couple of hours.

Activating 4G LTE on Airtel Sim Card.

To activate 4G or to use your phone for calls, you will need to recharge your connection and subscribe to a data pack (possible online).

IMPORTANT: Even though the data might start working as soon as the connection is activated, you should immediately get a data pack. Regular data use rate is much more expensive than data packs. Data packs can be purchased for 1GB, 2GB, 5GB, 8GB etc and are generally valid for a month.

Activate Data Roaming:

Different states in India fall under different telecom circles. So if you buy a sim card in Delhi, it would be considered as roaming in Mumbai. However there are no extra charges for using data anywhere in India. You just need to enable ‘Data while roaming’ on your phone.

Take a roaming pack.

Even though data rates and allowances remain same throughout India, incoming calls while roaming in India is not free. For that you need to recharge with an incoming roaming pack. This will make all your incoming calls free across India.

Now you are all set with your local 4G sim card in India. Happy surfing. Happy Journey 🙂