Changed rates for sms on Diwali: Money minting idea

By Natraj Muthukrishnan on 17 October, 2009, 12:35 pm

What can be called a new way of money minting is the charges mobile operators charge during the festive season. For instance, the sms which is free for a connection as per the plan is charged 50 paise per sms for Airtel, 25 paise per sms for Vodaphone and Re.1 for the recently launched Tata Indicom for a single sms sent on the diwali day.

With market flooding with discounts and/or offers from all quaters, this rather comes as a surprise. This goes in tune with the poilcy of all business doers to attract new customers but neglecting the old customers. Starting from housing loan to a mobile operation, it is the same policy everywhere. The reason the operators say is that this would help to balance the peak network load which is expected during the festive season. And this does not happen only for Diwali but for New year, Christmas and many local festivals and also Valentine day and Friendship day.

The only silver lining in this whole thing is that the customer is informed a day in advance of the new rates applicable for the festive day. So, it is upto the customers to make it an advanced or belated wish or to shell out some extra bucks from the pocket if he/she wants to be bang on wishing.

Nevertheless, Have a wonderful and safe diwali all!!

You may be interested in these articles:

Golden Diwali for Indians this time : In what can be seen as a mockery of the hue and cry over recession, Indians this year have bought a whooping 56 tonnes of gold this diwali, a 8 day period surveyed. This is nine trucks full of gold costing a whooping 2 billion dollars. Though this figure is...

Vodafone joins the roaming tariff war : Vodafone has finally joined the roaming tariff war. Last week it announced a 50% cut in its roaming charges. It has also provided customers an option to switch to per-second pulse. So users cab choose between two plans : 70 paise per minute or 1.5 paise per second. The tug...

Price rise vs Festivities!! : The biggest Indian festival is around the corners. But the festive mood is not the same as other years. The reason being, after a bad recession price rise has come to haunt Indian middle class. The soaring food prices are sure to dampen the festive spirit as Diwali is synonymous...

The Business of IPL – Money Minting Mantra of Indian Cricket : Cricket has got its money minting machine, its own kuberan in the form of the Indian Premier League and hence, the epicenter of world cricket is no longer in London or Sharjah or even Australia but it is India.The magic began in Jan 2008 when eight teams were auctioned for...

Symbiotic money minting ways of Indian television channels and movies : The showbiz business is the one of the biggest money minters in the country. Over the time, the movie industry in India has metamorphosed itself into a fully grown professional business unit. Now and then there have been changes which have helped those involved to mint more and more money. One...