'35 MB for Rs 9': Viral post on old data prices takes Indians on a trip down memory lane

Before online mobile recharges became the norm, smartphone users would typically use a scratch card to top up their balance. A picture of one such Airtel scratch card has sent Indian Twitter on a trip down memory lane.

The picture shows a scratch card from Airtel offering 35 MB of 2G data for the price of Rs 9 only – exorbitant by today’s standards, no doubt. For a quick comparison, Rs 9 today would buy an Airtel customer around 500 MB of 5G data.

“Data prices in ancient India,” read the caption alongside the photograph as it was shared on the microblogging platform X (formely known as Twitter).
The fall in data prices in India can be attributed to the launch of Reliance Jio in 2016. With its extremely cheap data plans, Jio made the internet accessible to millions of Indians. "Jio changed the consumption habits for hundreds of millions of consumers," Neil Shah, an analyst at Counterpoint Research, told Business Insider in 2019.

The viral tweet sparked nostalgia as people reminisced about the time when using the internet on phone was an expensive hobby.

“Memories never fade,” wrote one commenter. “I bought Rs 199 Airtel 3G 1GB data for 24 hours in 2012 and I felt rich that time. I sold my books for it,” another revealed.