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TV spurs SMS frenzy
According to a recent survey by the Cellular Operators' Association of India, Bihar and Jharkhand register a whopping 45-50 lakh text messages every day, reports Subhash Pathak.
It seems the short messaging service (SMS) phenomenon has taken over Jharkhand and Bihar. According to a recent survey by the Cellular Operators’ Association of India, the two states register a whopping 45-50 lakh text messages every day. The SMS traffic in the states has witnessed a 20-30 per cent growth in the last six months.
The increased traffic means that cellular service providers here are having a really tough time handling the deluge of text messages. Officials with different cellular service providers say that each subscriber roughly sends one or two messages daily with traffic peaking during festivals.
Also, a rather interesting finding of the survey is that 10 per cent of the messages is in response to various TV contests. These messages are referred to as “special SMSs” and cost Rs 2 per message, which is almost double the charge of a regular text message. And with more and more TV channels churning out reality shows that demand audience participation, the SMS traffic is only bound to go up.
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