The new tariff war between telecom service providers will now be in the area of SMS services. Reliance Communications (RCOM), a national telecom service provider, set the ball rolling on Friday by reducing SMS charges to one paise per SMS from the current 50 paise.
If tariff war in voice
calls is an indication, other operators are expected to follow. Vodafone and Airtel refused to comment when asked if they would cut rates.
Under the new scheme, a subscriber can send an SMS from anywhere in India at one paise by paying a monthly fee of Rs. 11. By subscribing to another plan, a subscriber can send unlimited SMS by paying Re 1 a day.
RCOM has around 9.2 crore subscribers. The offer is available for subscribers of both its CDMA and GSM services.
Currently, SMS charges of most operators start at 50 paise, depending on the scheme.
The ongoing price war began early this year as new entrants launched services. Tata DoCoMo, new in GSM services, launched its per second billing plan in February. Later, roaming rats were slashed when RCOM started offering roaming at one paise per second.