Hyderabad based SMSCountry, which operates the free SMS service 160by2, has launched free SMS services to Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia & Singapore. This means that registered users can send an SMS to mobile numbers in these countries, without paying the standard International SMS charges. Satya Kalyan Yerramsetti, CEO and Co-founder of SMSCountry has said that the company plans to launch services in other South East Asian markets as well. By aggregating free SMS services in various countries on an Internet platform, this free SMS service is disrupting the existing format in which International SMS' are sent. 160by2 has a mobile application as well, which uses both SMS and GPRS to send free SMS'. For Pre-paid users in Kerala, Airtel charges Rs. 3 for an international SMS to the Gulf region, while BSNL charges Rs. 5 for all International SMS'. A Precedence in Internet Telephony A precedence exists in case of voice over Internet protocol (VoIP/Internet Telephony), wherein one can make calls to International telephone numbers using services like Skype, at a lower cost. In India, VoIP is not allowed to terminate in a PSTN (Landline or Mobile) network, though the telecom regulator TRAI is pushing that agenda. Competition & Costs SMS costs in International markets are higher (we're assuming that Bulk SMS costs are higher too), so will any one be willing to take on the costs? Other service providers can follow suit, but garnering a user base is quite another task: 160by2 claims to have 4 million registered users (India has over 400…
Please subscribe to MediaNama. Don't share prints and PDFs.
You May Also Like
News
Google has released a Google Travel Trends Report which states that branded budget hotel search queries grew 179% year over year (YOY) in India, in...
Advert
135 job openings in over 60 companies are listed at our free Digital and Mobile Job Board: If you’re looking for a job, or...
News
By Aroon Deep and Aditya Chunduru You’re reading it here first: Twitter has complied with government requests to censor 52 tweets that mostly criticised...
News
Rajesh Kumar* doesn’t have many enemies in life. But, Uber, for which he drives a cab everyday, is starting to look like one, he...