India's largest telecom operator Airtel has withdrawn discounts it offered on online purchases of its mobile data for pre-paid customer packs and has brought it on par with internet packs sold through offline retailers, reports the Press Trust of India. For example, Mobiletor.com points out that in the Mumbai circle, customers could buy 1GB of 3G data for Rs 249 and it had a validity period of 30 days. This has been cut down to 1GB of mobile Internet for 28 days only and customers need to pay a higher price of Rs 255. In 2G data packs, customers can now get Rs 199 pack which gives 1.25GB for 28 days, as opposed to 2GB of 2G data for 30 days. "There is a slight change in few of our online prepaid data packs owing to the discontinuation of discounted offers on these,” an Airtel spokesperson told MediaNama. It's worth noting that last week, Idea Cellular has increased its mobile data prices by up to 100% for some of its pre-paid 2G plans in Delhi-NCR, while data prices for its 3G plans have gone by around 33%. With this, it is expected that other telecom operators will be increasing their tariffs considering that the fact that total bids during the spectrum auctions earlier this year were 37% higher than the reserve price. A Vodafone spokesperson told MediaNama that the company is evaluating a response to Airtel and Idea's hikes. We've also written to Idea Cellular and will update once we get a response. Data connections and…
