Can Tata Indicom’s Pay Per Call Concept be a revolution in Mobile Industry?
Did you think Tata Docomo’s per second billing was ground-breaking. Wait to hear this –
Tata Indicom, the CDMA arm of Tata Teleservices, has just unveiled an innovative pay-per-call plan. It is completely different from traditional per second / minute billing that all the current mobile operators use.
Here is Tata Indicom’s Pay-per-Call offering
The Tata Indicom subscribers will have a fixed charge on a per-call basis – at Re 1 for all local calls and Rs 3 for STD calls – regardless of the duration of the call. SMS would be offered at a special price of 50 paise for both national and local messages.
(source)
The important aspect about this is, it is charged at a single flat rate regardless of duration of call.
All the callers who love to talk on mobiles for hours are going to lap this up very quickly. This really has a potential of turning the Mobile services market upside down.
No more will time the factor in calling, but the number of calls that you do. This is just fantastic and out of the box thinking from Tata Indicom.
I am sure Tata Indicom would have done their Maths correctly, as this prima-facie looks like a full-on consumer favoured plan !
There are however a couple of things that you need to know – The pay per call plan is initially being launched for the pre-paid platform only, and all subscribers who opt for it will be charged a daily fee of Re 1 to avail of the tariff option.
The service is available on all new Tata Indicom connections for Rs 99 with a validity of 10 years, and on one-time recharge of Rs 96 for existing customers.
Also, give a little bit of thought to the fact – Why is this plan launched for Tata Indicom and not for GSM based Tata Docomo. CDMA market is gradually shrinking and people are opting for GSM services. Is this the last ditch effort by Tata Indicom to gain market share in CDMA segment?
Would love to hear what the readers think about this new plan by Tata Indicom – Will it be lapped up by consumers in hordes?
read all the views posted here,,no doubt tata has launched a superb plan which is attracting the masses.i am finding it difficult to understand why people are so pessimistic about the plan when t is crystal clear.even a child can make out the attractiveness of the plan and whether it suits his/her requirement.pay per call is a plan which suits the requirements of people who call for too long,this plan cant be considered for frequent usage where u dont talk for long.the only option is u can carry it as a substitute for long calls.
Nitin. You can’t use dual sim to make use of this offer as this is not Tata Indicom GSM plan but traditional CDMA plan.
Yes, if you want to avail this offer, you’ll have to buy a mobile which comes with Tata Indicom connection.
And I value upender‘s comment a lot. I have always fallen for Tata Indicom’s lucrative schemes without knowing about the catch. I have felt this many times. So I was sure that they’ll keep some catch anywhere. Sure, it’ll happen like what Upender said.
Already their coverage is not good. So they can state the reason and cut your calls in between when you are talking…
Well me from Mumbai but in mumbai this plan has not lunched why ?
i strongly belive this is the best scheme ever in tele communication
i am sure all business will get motivation, for short duration call you use per minutes service like airtel, orange, Reliance , for long call u must use tata
and ha you can start using dual sim card cell phone which is again singal towards growing india, hope tata will soon lunch this plan to mumbai,
hey vandana ! why ur so upset with 1re / 10m ..it is also amazing..will a save lot
I hope they start it soon in Mumbai.
Ya…! Certainly…! Still you will be paying 10 p perminute.. where no service provider has offered…
Be happy in what you are getting…! No angry..!
Hi,
This is really a revolution. But only helps those who makes long time calls. Better opted depends on the need.
For example: If I want to talk for 2 minutes of STD its not cheap for me. At the same time if I want to talk for more than 10 minutes Its awesome. So basically we need to carry 2 phones one for very less time calls and other for long time calls which will last for more than 10 minutes.
Any way best of luck to TATA.
At last but not least TATA is no having very good coverage.
The plan is fake!
Its 1 re for every 10 mins!
DO NOT GO FOR IT!
I bought a cdma phone just for this and now this is what i figured out!
This is good step. 1min call is Rs.1/- in other mobile operators. this mobile operators is given 10 min call for Rs.1/- not Rs.2/- not Rs.3/- . So which is better. I think Tata
its a superb plan in telecom industry
now i am spending daily 20-30 rupees per day to call my girl friend .now iam paying only 2-3 rupees daily its a very saving to my pocket
what if call gets disconnected in between because of poor tata services. I am currently using tata and it gets disconected and saya “call is lost frequently”.
Its true that the offer i catchy but its profitable only to those who talk more because we already have call chances as low as 30p to all calls in data alone,here the new offer will charge u 10p per min but if u cut the cal in the first minute alone then u will be charged at the rate of 1rs per min,
Ya …really its a new n very big revolution has come,in telecome services history so far……….really great..very great ….it will help all those peoples who always thinked before do any call………………..but I have one question also that why didnt it has started in GSM TATA DOCOMO ….. pls start this scheme also on GSM SERVICES…thanks…
Why pay per call is not there for Mumbai and Maharashtra while available for rest of India?
Does Tata Tele with TTML want to milk Mumbai customers?
If other operators start pay per call and old customers like us shift then ?
It should be same nation wide as rules and charges of DOT TRAI are same nation wide hence expenses.
@Amit
Tata is providing 10 year validity for Rs99. I don’t think u will be charged something if you stop using the facility.
This is a nice move from tata to get new customers.
Fixed price schemes have worked in Japan. Case in point being Softbank which even offer FREE calling between Softbank users – unlimited talking time between 7 am to the following morning 1:00am. However, it is a bit pricey if you are calling non-Softbank users. Note that in Japan, you can call anywhere in Japan for the same price (or free, in this case).
The company also has put a cap on the maximum charge even if you use internet 24hrs on your iPhone! And guess what, the company has made huge profits. The mighty competitor NTT Docomo is down on its knees as it has lost huge number of customers to Softbank in the 1st wave after number portability happened. Now in the 2nd wave, by making phone calls free between Softbank users and capping charge on internet usage, Softbank is nearly ruling the mobile market.
Not take to the discussion away from the Tata indicom issue, but just wanted to share the info that this kind of model can help. Especially, if you can gain so many customers that even if you sell your services for peanuts, just the huge number of monkeys consuming the peanuts can make you the king!
September 3, 2009 @ 10:05 am
Why pay per call is not there for Mumnai while available for rest of India?
Also DOCOMO free sms after two paid SMS for mumnai while after one paid for rest of India.
Dose Tata Tele with TTML want to milk on Mumbai customers?
If other operatots start and old customers like us shift then ?
It should be same Nation wide
its true that the offer i catchy but its profitable only to those who talk more
because we already have call charces as low as 30p to all calls in tata alone,,,
here the new offer wil charge u 10p per min but if u cut the cal in the first minute alone then u will be charged at the rate of 1rs per min,,,,,
i think the catch is the 10 yr lock in period . what if you want to get out of the plan ? over all looks like a great deal to me
I am not really sure of the math part, especially for Small Businesses –
a) Current expenses, for example –
Assume Re.1 per minute for local call and Rs. 2 per minute for STD call
Let’s say, the business in total has 5 phones and each phone on average is used for 40 (4 calls of 10 min each) minutes per day for local, and 30 (3 calls of 10 min each) minutes per day for STD.
Total cost = 40*5*1+30*5*2 = Rs. 500
b) In the new plan, the total cost will be:
4*5*1+3*5*2+1 = Rs. 66
That’s just a killing saving for SB. Assuming infrastructure cost spreads, the only hope is making this difference up in huge volume.
I would assume there is some fine print somewhere. And they can discontinue this service anytime I guess, which is a risk for the business.
All in all, I guess this is more of a test-and-learn kind of campaign, I guess.
I totally agree. There is a catch. They are promoting the CDMA market and ofcourse to capture the shares. In doing so, many new customers may join to the tataindicom family but, in mean while we spend 1000+ depending upon the CDMA mobiles. So we can see that they are trying to sell out the CDMA mobile phones. If u consider the Kirans calculation, it comes to 500 for normal GSM. And with tataindicom 66 + (1000+) new handset which will come arround 1066 and ofcourse its more if we consider for only 40 calls. And gradually if we use more the effective investment we come down. But only if the tariff remains same. And more over the huge number of CDMA cell phones with this plan will add a lot money to them. And I guess the primary goal is to cell the CDMA phones.
Thanks,
Vishwajeet B
@ the calculations..
biggest mistake in the calculation is the assumption of 10 mins of talk you had..
how may times in a day do you talk for 10 mins is the question..?
now in the third world.. no one is that idle…every one has business to…
even if its ear phones how long will you stick them in your ears..
sooner or later , you will stop thinking abt how long are you talkin..
the better calculations..for a general person not in a relationship.
you would do 10 local calls each of maximum 2 minutes..like to know wher one is to, to know what the plan is for today.. wher shall we meet..
what are you doing this time..etc.. which last not more than a minute..
TATA saves money here..
and 2 to 5 long distant calls..wher you gen talk a little bit over 10 mins..
and may be 30 mins TATA invests money here.
@ppl in relationships ..
TATA again invests money here…
The money TATA saves shuld be more than they invest
they have been seeing the traffic flow since some years.. they are not dumbassess..
further the margins might be very small …
but volumes .. huge..gigantic..
point No. 2.
3G auctions are on its way.. its high time to use already well established 2G network to its max efficency and earn some profit..every one would soon change to 3G if deals are not lurcative…
so shuld b a nice deal both on customers side and