Keep your Vi number active while abroad

Vi files its prepaid terms with the regulator, and the filing is more specific than anything on the marketing side of the site. Two numbers in it matter to someone leaving the country: a seven-day grace on benefits, which is the shortest of the three large networks, and the familiar twenty rupees per thirty days that holds the number itself.

Seven days, not fifteen

Vi's benefits grace is short. Its prepaid tariff filing sets the condition as "in case of non-recharge with Rs. 24 every 14 days or any applicable recharge at the end of validity period", and where that is not met, the filing reserves the right to curtail plan benefits "during the grace period of upto 7 days".

Two weeks of validity and one week of grace is a tight cycle to manage from a different time zone. It governs benefits rather than the number, but it is the reason a Vi line can feel like it has failed while the number underneath is still perfectly alive.

The rule that decides whether the number survives

Underneath the benefits, the filing sets out the same regulated structure the other networks use. The filing says the connection "will be deactivated if there is no call (outgoing or incoming) or an outgoing SMS or a data session (upload or download) or usage of Value Added Services, for a continuous period of 90 days and in case the main account balance is less than Rs. 20/-, at the discretion of VIL".

Vi writes "(outgoing or incoming)" into the definition, so a call you answer counts as usage on its wording. And the deactivation condition again needs both halves: ninety silent days and a balance under twenty rupees.

Holding the number works the same way as elsewhere. The same filing provides that "if the subscriber main account balance is Rs. 20/- or more, a number retention charge of Rs. 20/- for every 30 days will be automatically deducted and the non-usage period will be extended by 30 days", and after deactivation, "a grace period of 15 days will be provided within which the subscriber can retain the deactivated number by paying a fee of Rs. 20/-". Twelve months of that retention charge works out at roughly 240 rupees, which is arithmetic from the filed figure rather than a quoted price.

Safe custody, and the reason it may not be for you

Vi is the one network here that productizes the regulator's safe-custody idea, and there is a catch in the first line of its page. Vi's Safe Custody page describes a service that lets you retain "your Vi Postpaid number even if there is no usage, by paying minimal Safe Custody charges".

Postpaid. Everything else on this card is the prepaid system, and the two are not variations of one policy; they are different arrangements with different rules. If you are on Vi postpaid, the same page sets out the shape: "you can choose to avail safe custody for a period of 1 month, 3 months and 6 months", extendable "for 1 month at a time up till 12 months. After 12 months, you will need to reactivate your number for atleast 30 days, before you can avail Safe Custody again."

A year is therefore the ceiling on one continuous stretch of safe custody, and the reset costs thirty days of live service. For a two-year posting that is worth planning around before you go, not after.

Before you fly

• Decide whether you are prepaid or postpaid before reading any advice about Vi, including this card. The answer changes everything below it.
• Prepaid: keep the balance above twenty rupees and budget twenty per thirty days.
• Postpaid: safe custody runs in one, three or six month blocks, up to a year in total.
• The regulator floor under all of it is on the India page, and the three networks' wording sits side by side on all carriers.