Saturday, December 5, 2009

SMS tariff war

The battle continues - will the customer win the war? The tariff war in the mobile telecom industry has now extended and shifted its focus to the Short Messaging Services (SMSes). Dual technology player Reliance Communications (RCom) has triggered a tariff war in the SMS segment. The company has launched two SMS plans which are available to both pre-paid and post paid users of the GSM and CDMA service.

SMSes under one plan will be charged at 1 paisa per SMS, but in order to avail of the same, users would have to pay a monthly fee of Rs 11. In another plan the users can avail of 15,000 SMSes free, by paying Re 1 per day as a fee. In other words it means 500 SMSes per day for a rupee charged; a great offer.

The above plans will be appealing to customers with high SMS usage – typically youth and professionals across India.

The tariff war is likely to continue till consolidation sets in the mobile telecom industry.

Since the mobile telecom industry is more voice driven, the move may not have too much impact on the industry. However, it will indeed be pro-customer as it will lead to increase in savings.

No comments:

Post a Comment