My day began with an interesting piece of article from GigaOm, 'It's official: Voice is worthless'.

Although this article goes in length and talks about US teleco AT&T's plan to offer free mobile to mobile calls so as to fend off customers going for iPhone on Verizon’s network, it forced me to think about the depleting stature of voice service on mobile phones these days in the Indian market.

Not many would have missed the Videocon advertisement that is being aired on all national television channels, wherein many with tears in their eyes are bidding adieu to 'one-paisa', which is lying in a coffin, and then with the signature 'Auro move' welcoming '0' paisa.

Well, if you thought Videocon is giving away its voice service free of cost, then you are not fully wrong either!

Although it is more of a marketing gimmick that Videocon has taken up, the actual plan is something like this:

Ten minutes local calls to any network free per day for six months: This offer is available with the V202 and V1292 models.

Ten minutes local calls to any network free per day for one year: This offer is available with the V1404, V1428, V1676 models.

Thirty minutes local calls to any network free per day for one year and unlimited calls to Videocon local numbers for one year: This offer is with the V7400 and V7500 models, the Videocon Android models.

What so ever, an aspect that is clearly emerging out of this is that voice is no longer the revenue driver for mobile telephony today. Especially with the splurge of cheap smartphones, data is giving voice a run for its sweet spot and, in turn, mobile operators are even ready to go to an extend where they are giving off voice for free to their subscribers, although with some hidden booty's as of now.

We have seen before how within a matter of just a few months the 'one-paisa-per-second' tariff rose to become the industry standards of Indian telecom industry.

So, when it was Tata DoCoMo, which ushered in the one-paisa-per-second plan back then, it is Videocon, which is today pushing for a new era where voice service will be given off free of cost, and in the coming days we might see more and more mobile operators coming with similar offers.

Hey, is there anyone hearing this voice?

Posted on: 2/10/2011 at 7:36 PM
Tags: videocon zero paisa plan, one-paisa-per-second, zero-paisa-per-second, tariff, one paisa tariff, zero paisa tariff, videocon advertisement
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