Now SMS At 1 Paisa/ SMS With Reliance
Upping the ante again in the mobile tariff wars, Reliance Communications has announced a plan under which both pre-paid and post-paid subscribers of its GSM and CDMA services would be charged 1 paisa per SMS, if they paid Rs 11 a month.
Alternatively, prepaid customers could pay Rs. 1 per day, (and postpaid customers Rs. 25 a month) for unlimited SMSes. Incidentally, this is applicable to both local and national SMSes.
This is definitely going to impact ARPUs, given that other telecom opertaors would have to follow suit. Expect telecom stocks to drop. In the meantime, service becomes all the more important, with mobile number portability due to launch soon.
Earlier, TATA had mentioned that it’s per-second billing plan had led to an increase in minute usage, and helped them maintain their ARPU at the industry average of Rs. 200 – 250. This however, would drastically reduce revenues, given that the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai), estimates that an average customer sends 25 SMSes in a month.
Clearly, the future for dwindling ARUSs is going to lie with value added services, and not voice or data communication.
Related posts:
- Reliance Drops Call Rates To 50p/ Min
- Reliance Readies For Nov Launch Of GSM Service
- After Mobile Blogging, Look Out For Books Via SMS
- Google SMS Channels Launches – Watch Out SMSGupshup
- Tata Teleservices To Invest Another $1 Bln In GSM Service
Filed under: Business
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