The competition in the mobile internet segment is hotting up. Reliance Communications and Videocon on Wednesday offered unlimited internet access to subscribers through their mobile phones for a monthly fee which is just under Rs 100.
The market leader Bharti Airtel is already offering a similar plan for its pre-paid customers.
Due to the presence of 15 mobile operators, who are competing with each other to garner more market share, the cost of voice call has already dipped to as low as 0.5 pasie per second. With no further scope of a dip in voice calls, mobile operators are looking at other facilities to attract new subscribers.
The popularity of cheaply available local smart phones has increased the usage of the mobile internet among the youth. They are using the mobile internet for accessing the social networking websites and emails.
Therefore, mobile companies are using the unlimited internet facility to attract new subscribers to their network. According to Videocon the base of mobile internet users in India has grown 245 per cent over 2008, highlighting the rapid growth of data users on mobile service networks.
Reliance Communi-cations said that the offering is part of the company’s plans to launch third-generation (3G) services in India. “The company is taking the first step by creating an environment for adoption of mobile internet in India as a long term measure to facilitate mass adoption of 3G services.” Reliance has won the licence to offer 3G services in 13 Indian circles including Mumbai and Delhi.