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Aircel mobile and their SMS pricing

Off late, if you have noticed closely, mobile companies have started arbitrarily charging for SMS during festival and other important days. This is in spite of offering a fixed number of free SMS every month according to the plan you have subscribed. I receive a SMS from the service provider 3 or 4 days before the special day, like New Year or Pongal that SMS sent on a particular date would be charged.

I find it annoying when you have free SMS as per your plan and finally you end up paying for these SMSes which are much less than your limit, just because of the fact that you sent some SMS on that special day. I don’t personally rely too much on SMS, but still I think there are quite a number of people who are impacted by this. I think Aircel should desist from doing this. It is unfair. But we would have signed an agreement without even reading which gives them the right to modify pricing for SMS etc.,

Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that they have increased the rates of SMS during the special days. I remember Aircel charging SMS at 25p during the New Year and Pongal but recently for the Valentines day, the charges have been increased to 50p!! I have experienced this with Aircel and I am not sure if all other service providers also resort to same kind of tactics to make that extra buck.

With the falling revenue per user (RPU) quarter on quarter and the ongoing price war among telcos, I think this practice will not help Aircel in anyway. Aircel, please understand Mobile Number Portability (MNP) is on the way.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes they are charging money on festival days for SMS, not only in Aircel but also other services providers.

I belive they will stop, once the Mobile number portability service introduced in cities.

Cheers!
Sai.S

Venkysdiary said...

@ Sai.S:
Lets hope so!!