Airtel Call Home Shutdown Service Closed

This is something new, we have seen very less voip and calling cards provider shutting down their service. On the one hand Spice group bought Mediaringtalk and rebranded as Sunno-voip, and on the other side Airtel Call Home : Airtel Call India Calling Card service is shutting down its voip service.

Reason for this shutdown, closure of AirtelCallHome service is not known. AirtelCallHome mentions on its website that "Due to unforeseen circumstances, Airtel Call Home will not be able to extend its services from 30th June 2011 (2400 hrs)onwards. While we recommend you to consume your available talk time, we assure you that all unutilized talk time balance within the validity period will be duly refunded".

New user Signup is already closed by Airtelcallhome. You will not be able to recharge any further from 5th June ’2011. Toll free/Local Access services shall remain fully functional till 30th June ‘2011.

Regarding the refund of voip credit, AirtelCallhome mentions :
"You may apply for refund by contacting our customer care or write an email. Customer Care will raise trouble ticket and initiate refund. Kindly note that Customer Credit card should not be expired/ blocked at the time of refund, through which original transaction is processed. Refund may take upto 15days and hence it is strongly recommended to consume your balance by 30th June. Standard refund process applies. You may contact the call centre for any clarifications".

I would suggest you to consume your voip credit before the service gets shutdown, as you would like to avoid hurdle of getting refund.

As the calling rates to India have already been very low now, the scope for calling cards is very less. What we see in the future is pure voip calling. I believe people will be switching to mobile voip (with 3G/Wifi facilities already available) and making absolutely free calls on their smartphone.

If you are following Free Pc to Phone Calls blog, then I hope you must be aware of mobile voip apps for smartphones (iPhones, Android, Blackberry, Nokia Mobiles). We have been encouraging people to try video calling on their mobiles. But if you are not even using voip for your international calls then you are losing a lot of money.