SMS quota hiked to 20, but mobile users want half rental back

Mumbai: In a major relief to telecom consumers, who were allowed to send only 5 SMSs or MMSsof 25Kb a daytillThursday morning, will now be able tosendup to20 SMSs a day. 

    Thedepartmentof telecom issued this directive to telecom operators in the city on Thursday, following which most telecom firms started implementing it. Interestingly, major telecom operators are implementing this only for their prepaid consumers, citing technical reasons. 
    Meanwhile, cellphone users have demanded refund of half of the rentals of this month which is charged according to the quota of SMSs awarded to each tariff plan. They are alsocomplaining that they were spending more as they hadto make morecallsbecause of curbs on SMSs and also facing congestion in the network. Even on the sixth day of the 15-day period for implementingSMS restrictions, the confusion and congestion in networks prevailed. While some subscribers could send several SMSs, others with the same operator and in some cases same tariff plans could not send more than five. The congestion was mainly due to consumers resorting to frequentcalls rather than SMSing while the confusion was mainly due to lack of uniformity in applying the directive across allconsumer categories. 
    Achintya Mukherjee of Bombay Telephone Users Association said, "It's criminal to reduce the quota of 100 to 200 SMS tojust5 andinconveniencing a large section of consumers." Hesupportedthedemand of consumersto return rentals andsaidsuchdecisionsshould be taken after taking operators and consumers into confidence. Social activist Ajit Shenoy said though the reason for doing thiswas aimed at national security, the limit should be relaxed now as the communal tension was fading fast. Interestingly, smaller telecom operators are implementing the directivefor both pre-paid aswell as post-paidconsumers.