Telecom Tuesday: Reliance feels the DOCOMO heat – slashes rates to 50p

Tata DOCOMO / Indicom has been making waves with their innovative schemes off late and other Telecom providers have started to feel the heat, Reliance in particular.

To overcome the hype and flow of subscribers to Tata DOCOMO / Indicom, Reliance has announced a flat rate of 50 paise per minute. The important aspect is that it is a flat rate that comes on GSM as well as CDMA.

Here are the highlights of the plan:

• All calls – Local, STD & Roaming at 50 Paise only – for lifetime
• Available on all GSM & CDMA networks anytime, anywhere in India
• Available on both prepaid and postpaid platforms
• No restrictions, no conditions, no exclusions
• Effective from October 6^th across India

Although currently most of the telecom companies offer a rate of 50 paise per minute, there is always a caveat and mostly for pre-paid customers. For postpaid, you need to have a bigger minimum monthly plan. Hence, No restrictions, no conditions, no exclusions clause is quite significant.

Now comes the interesting part – Why are all the mobile services companies offering these dirt cheap plans, even though the call rates are at rock bottom, infact lowest in the world – yes, partly it is because they all need to gain more subscribers – but there is lot more to it.

The Mobile number portability is coming by the end of the year and all Telecom companies need to be nearly at the same level when it comes to pricing – Otherwise they stand to loose hordes of customers to their cheaper rival – Its going to be a war.

Not only the prices will have to be competitive but even the quality of services. Moving forward, Value added services will also play an important role in acquiring customers.

The biggest benefactor offcourse are going to be consumers – interesting times ahead. Now talk all you want :)