Tata DOCOMO raises bar: 1 paisa per Second for local roaming & STD – Even SMSes could be at 1 paise mark

Tata DOCOMO is at it again – They have now raised the bar (in lowering mobile call tariffs ) even further. If you thought per second pulse for local call was good, Check this out –

Tata DOCOMO has introduced 1 paisa per second Billing for all incoming and outgoing local and STD calls, to any network, to mobile or landline phones.

Woohooo, that’s music to ears – and with Mobile Number Portability all set to become reality by year end – Subscribers will be thronging for DOCOMO services.

Tata DOCOMO has taken Industry by storm to say the least – First by Introducing per second billing, then by unlimited GPRS plans and now this. And all this backed by some really aggressive and innovative Marketing and Branding campaign – Hats off to them!

Now here is another surprise for you. With the advent of ultra low mobile call rates, SMS has now started to feel more expensive than even the Phone calls itself -  But even that is going to change very soon.

Mobile SMS charges are also going to come tumbling down very soon, if this particular article is to be believed.

TRAI has had a long standing policy of not interfering or regulating the tariffs set my mobile operators – but that’s going to be changing soon. The reason – According to recent news article in TOI, SMS rates are 50 to 100 times higher than what it costs the service providers. They are, in short, fleecing money on SMS charges.

TRAI is going to intervene in this regards and going to issue a consultation paper to review telecom tariffs within a months time.

The cost of an SMS is a fraction of a paisa. This is because an average SMS consists of 1KB data, which takes a fraction of a second for transportation and termination.

If this happens, Indian mobile consumers can easily expect that even SMS rates should fall down to a few paises per SMS.

The statement made recently by Indian Telecom Minister A. Raja that he wants to see local calls at 10 paise and STD at 25 paise seems to be coming to reality after all..

Very interesting times ahead :) What do you have to say about this?