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Make & Track Complaints To Your Telecom Provider Soon

by Paul Joseph January 10, 2012 Featured

The Telecom Regulation Authority of India ( TRAI ) has been on the offensive in the past year or so, in an effort to ensure a better customer experience for the Indian Public. After cracking down on unsolicited calls with the DND Facility, they tackled  the issue of spam  SMSes with their restrictions on Unlimited SMS Plans. Now, they have made an effort to fix another major problem faced by customers: Complaint Management. Here  is a link to the original TRAI Directive. All of us have been faced with an unknown deduction, a bill payment not recognized or an SMS Plan not activated. When the regular customer care is unable to help us, we are forced to file complaints. These complaints are usually filed away and very hard to keep track off. The TRAI has come out with a new  directive that states, “ Every  service provider shall, within  forty-five days of coming into  force of these regulations, establish a ‘Web Based Complaint Monitoring System’ to enable the consumers to monitor the status of their complaints.” This means that, theoretically, in another month and a half, you will be able to log into your Telecom Provider’s  website, and be able to see whether they have worked on your issue of double deduction or whatever the case may be. By doing so, the advantages are multiple fold. Customers will finally get some peace of mind and not have to endlessly follow up on complaints. A lot of cases of unnecessary Number Porting can be avoided. Also, Telecom Providers will not have to deal with numerous complaints of in-courteous handling of customers and the like. Do you think the TRAI’s new directive will be put into effect in the stipulated 45 days? Do let us know in the comments below. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Way2Online Buys Out Rival 160by2 TRAI Fines Telecom Companies Rs. 6L For Unwarranted Calls Mobile Messenger Apps Gain In Popularity At The Expense Of SMS Sabeer Bhatia’s Brand New Venture JaxtrSMS: Will It Be Revolutionary Like Hotmail ? Telemarketing Companies Find A Loophole In TRAI Directive; Starts Routing SMS’ Through Offshore Servers

Tagged as: dnd facility, events, mobile, news, sms, telecom provider, track complaints, web

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Way2Online Buys Out Rival 160by2

by Paul Joseph January 4, 2012 Featured

Hyderabad based Way2Online has recently bought over rival Web-to-SMS service 160by2 . The acquisition gives Way2Online 100% ownership of 160by2. The money that Way2Online shelled out for the buyout has not been made public but apparently it was all-in-cash deal. The company runs the popular P2P messaging portal Way2SMS.com. This acquisition has increased the user-base of Way2Online to 33 million users and hence have 95% share of the nation’s P2P SMS vertical market share. Quite a huge chunk of people! According to Alexa.com, which lists the most visited sites on the web, 160by2 is one of the Top-100 most visited websites in India successively in 2010 and 2011. According to Google Zeitgeist , Way2SMS is listed as one of the Top 10 search words of 2011. Both the services are practically the same and are built upon more or less the same technology so this buyout was more of a ‘increasing userbase’ kinda move than anything else. With the TRAI putting a clamp on bulk SMS operations, many companies have lost sufficient business. Along with that services like Way2SMS have also suffered. Now this strategic buyout will help them reach out to more users and thus get into other untapped territories like e-mail advertising. Seems like a good move but e-mail advertising is tricky territory and none but Gmail and Google have mastered it. What will these guys come up with? We can only wait and see. Also the emerging competition might have triggered this buyout. Recently launched services like JaxtrSMS (Subhir Bhatia’s next venture) may also pose a potential threat to their business. Jaxtr is more smartphone mobile friendly than Way2SMS and hence may result in the service losing its edge. And Bhatia’s name behind the venture is arousing everyone’s curiosity. What do you think about this acquisition? Will SMS still remain to be the primary texting method other than IM services like GoogleTalk, Whatsapp, Nimbuzz etc? Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Special Feature: SOPA – The Opposition Emerges Wish You A Dawn Of The Digital In New Year 2012 Recap 2011: Embracing Internet And Much More! Welcoming Muralikrishnan B: Country Manager Of eBay India As A Speaker At WATSummit 2012 The Internet In India 2011-12: Edelweiss Capital’s Releases Its Annual Report

Tagged as: events, Featured, jaxtrsms, mobile, news, sms, way2sms, web

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TRAI Fines Telecom Companies Rs. 6L For Unwarranted Calls

by Paul Joseph December 20, 2011 Featured

No one can say that the folks over at The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( TRAI ) haven’t been doing their job. After getting serious about cracking down on unwarranted SMSes to consumers, they first initiated a 100 SMS/day maximum limit for numbers. This was later pushed up to 200 SMSes a day on festive dates. They then turned to operators with the TRAI Customer Preference Regulations, 2010, which came into force on September 27, 2011 and made sure they don’t allow unwarranted calls to reach consumers. Now they have fined operators  a total of Rs. 6 lac for unwarranted calls to their customers. We know this from a recent Rajya Sabha declaration , through Minister of State for Communications and IT Milind Deora’s written reply to a question on this issue. Mr. Deora said, “ Prior to coming into force of this regulation, on an average 47,454 complaints were received a month (March 2010 to March 2011). However, the total number of complaints lodged by telecom consumers with their service providers from September 27, 2011 to November 30, 2011 were only 9,746 (4,498 complaints a month).” Telemarketers have been penalized on 18 instances and Rs. 6.05 lakhs in fines have been collected.  Tata Teleservices have paid Rs. 3.30 lakhs out of this, while Vodafone have paid Rs. 2 lakhs and Loop Telecom have paid Rs. 0.75 lakhs. Further, TRAI found 3409 subscribers who have not registered as telemarketers but were conducting telemarketing activities. They disconnected 410 of these connections. It is heartening that TRAI is taking this seriously, and hope that within the next few months, we are completely free from spam calls and messages and can enjoy greater peace of mind.  Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency Related Posts Mobile Messenger Apps Gain In Popularity At The Expense Of SMS Telemarketing Companies Find A Loophole In TRAI Directive; Starts Routing SMS’ Through Offshore Servers Expect More Unsolicited Calls While Regulators Wrangle Over Authority Mobile Phones – What Indian Teenagers Can’t Live Without! TRAI Issues New Guidelines For Unwanted Calls

Tagged as: events, financial results, fine sms, mobile, news, sms, telemarketers, trai

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Mobile Messenger Apps Gain In Popularity At The Expense Of SMS

by Paul Joseph December 5, 2011 Featured

Mobile phones have traversed a long distance from the times when its sole purpose was to make calls and send an occasional SMS. With SMS prices dropping sharply, over the years, texting became the preferred method of communicating. Mobile phone usage “ etiquette ” branded texting a more polite and non-intrusive form of communication. Online portals with free SMS services were the next to enter the market and make texting (in some cases) the preferred channel of official communication as well. Then smartphones took over the mobile world and now mobile applications determine how we interact with others. The recent TRAI directive to put a cap on the maximum number of text messages that can be sent per day (initially the cap was 100 SMS/day and was later revised to 200 SMS/day) has further advocated the cause of group messaging mobile applications. RIM’s popular Blackberry phones were the first to introduce a group messaging application called the Blackberry Messenger (BBM as it is commonly known). This application played a big role in making Blackberry’s, which was predominantly a business phone, popular among teenagers. But, BBM had restricted usability. iPhone entered the market and subsequently multiple similar applications were available for the iOS platform. It was the Android platform which really revolutionized (or should I rather say democratized) the smartphone as well as the mobile application market. Today there are multiple group messaging applications available, which are a favourite with the texting generation. WhatsApp is perhaps the most popular application, in this genre. It is a cross-platform application, which is a big plus point. But, more importantly WhatsApp allows users to not only send text messages but files (text, audio and video) as well. After installing, the app automatically scans your documents and provides you a ‘ favourites list ’, which contains names of all contacts having WhatsApp installed on their phone. There are various other apps like Nimbuzz, LiveProfile and Viber which are equally efficient. Pinch Mobile Messenger , developed by Affle, is another really good option. The application was recently upgraded and sports a host of new and useful features. There is great news for the Indian market as mobile messenger applications are being customized for the Indian consumers. Globaltel Media, a US-based company, has introduced its popular text service Cherple.in to the Indian market . This service will enable users to engage in text chats in Hindi. Recently, Sabeer Bhatia launched his latest venture called JaxtrSMS . This is another mobile messenger, but its main differentiating factor is that the recipient of the text message does not necessarily need to have the JaxtrSMS app installed on his phone. But in order to reply he would require the app. Samsung also launched its own messenger app called ChatON and it is available across all major smartphone platforms. Plus, Facebook Messenger remains a very popular option. Airtel’s tie-up with Twitter to introduce free access through mobile phones to the microblogging site from early next year is an added bonus. Do you use a mobile messenger application? What new features would you like to be added to these apps?

Tagged as: blackberry messenger, chaton, jaxtrsms, mobile, mobile messenger apps, sms, trai, whatsapp

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Sabeer Bhatia’s Brand New Venture JaxtrSMS: Will It Be Revolutionary Like Hotmail ?

by Paul Joseph November 23, 2011 Featured

We SMS more than we talk; this is a known fact now. Social networking sites, mobile apps and free SMS services are all vying for your (the consumers) attention. JaxtrSMS is the newest entrant in this space. Hotmail co-founder, Sabeer Bhatia , who is serial entrepreneur, is also part of Jaxtr Inc , the company responsible for developing this new application. JaxtrSMS will enable users to send text messages to any mobile phone in the world and the best part is that it is free. What makes JaxtrSMS an even more interesting proposition is the fact that it is not necessary that the recipient of the text message should have the JaxtrSMS application installed on their phone. The text message is behaves like a normal SMS and is received in the mobile phone’s inbox. This application is compatible with all platforms ( read iOS, Blackberry OS, Symbian, Android and Java ) and can be used in any phone that supports data plans. You can use this application irrespective of the service-provider you subscribe to. Blackberry Messenger was the first to bring free chat/SMS service to the mobile platform. In recent times, apps like WhatsApp Messenger and Pinch Mobile Messaging have become a rage. But JaxtrSMS scores over all these by eliminating the need for the recipient to have JaxtrSMS on their phone. This is a very shrewd move. You receive a text message through JaxtrSMS from a friend even tough you do not have the app on your phone, but if you want to reply to him for free then you need to install JaxtrSMS. Currently JaxtrSMS is a free service, whereas WhatsApp Messenger is free for the first year and charges $1.99 from the second year onwards. The seed of the idea, which led to JaxtrSMS, came to Sabeer Bhatia a year or so ago when his wife expressed the interest to switch to Blackberry from iPhone because she wanted to chat for free with her friends through BBM. This made him start thinking about an application which would “make all texting free”. His partner, Yogesh Patel, was receptive to the idea and that is how the story of JaxtrSMS started. Is there space for JaxtrSMS in the market? WhatsApp Messenger platform is used to send over 1 billion messages in a day and it also allows the users to send video, images and audio files as part of the messages, for free. The sender and receiver both need to have the app installed on their phone for WhatsApp Messenger to work. This is not the case with JaxtrSMS, but for two-way communication to take place it comes down to the same thing. Then there is Facebook Messenger . Most of our contacts, work or personal, are also part of out Facebook friends list, so for many Facebook Messenger is all they need. Plus Group Chat is now possible on Twitter and tweets, retweets , follows, mentions; et al can be accessed and operated through text messages. Also there are various free web-based SMS services like Way2SMS and 160by2 . The JaxtrSMS app is also going to face some glitches due to the new TRAI directive. All subscribers registered on the Do Not Call registry will not receive messages through the service. Do you think JaxtrSMS is innovative enough? Do you use a Free SMS app? Which one? Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

Tagged as: bbm, free sms, mobile, news, sabeer bhatia, sms, startups

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Telemarketing Companies Find A Loophole In TRAI Directive; Starts Routing SMS’ Through Offshore Servers

by Paul Joseph November 8, 2011 Featured

The recent TRAI directive , aimed to curb unsolicited text message advertisement, has not met with complete success. The directive restricts the maximum number of SMS sent from any number to 100 in a day. The telemarketing companies have quickly found a way around this by utilizing offshore servers. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (TRAI) earlier initiative, Do Not Call Registry , had also not met much of a success. A little over a month has passed since the directive came into effect on 27 th September. Initially there was a drastic reduction in the number of unsolicited SMS’ received, but within a week or so these SMS’ were back albeit in smaller numbers. TRAI has already received over 2500 complaints regarding this.India has over 860 million mobile subscribers, which makes telemarketing a very lucrative venture. This directive has had an adverse effect on their business and they will be looking at loopholes in the system. Telemarketing companies have been severely hit by this directive. Even tough some of them have found loopholes, but still their business has been reduced by 30% to 40%. Many telemarketing companies depended exclusively on bulk SMS . Over a period of time they have acquired a large database of mobile numbers and sending marketing SMS’ to these numbers was a daily routine for them. These companies are in dire straits now. Commercial communications through phone calls were also banned by TRAI, but the rules were made stringent only recently. Now telemarketing companies are in a fix as they have no means of continuing their operations. Considering the fact that the telemarketing industry is estimated to be worth Rs. 1500 crore these companies are facing heavy losses. A telemarketing company usually has a database of over 100,000 numbers, but now a tiny fraction of those numbers are useful as most mobile subscribers have registered their number on the NDNC list. Add to this the fact that any digression from the directive, on the part of the telemarketing companies, can lead to penalization to the tune of Rs. 2.5 lakh. Subscribers have the option to opt for either the ‘fully blocked’ category or the ‘partially blocked’ category. Plus, even if a subscriber is not registered on the NDNC list no commercial communication can be made to them between 9pm and 9am. E-commerce sites and portals which depend on SMS have also been affected. Some solutions have been emerging in the shape of companies like ZipDial . For telemarketing companies there is no such solution in sight. They have to take their chances with routing their SMS’ through offshore servers and targeting mobile subscribers who are yet to register on the NDNC list. Email is another alternative which telemarketing companies have been contemplating, but unless they can find a way to bypass the spam folder it will be of no real use. Add to this the fact that the Cellular Operators Association of India has already taken note of the incidents of telemarketing companies utilizing offshore servers. The COAI’s director-general has said that it might take some time but they will find a way to monitor messages sent through offshore servers. Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

Tagged as: bulk sms marketing, mobile, news, sms, telemarketing, trai

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Comviva Scores Big In Bangladesh With PreTUPS

by Paul Joseph September 6, 2011 Featured

Some days back, we blogged that Comviva affiliates  with GTech and Sangeeta, one of the mobile content provider in Bangaldesh.   Comviva’s PreTUPs now announces that it have scored a major victory and  has become the leading electronic top-up platform in Bangladesh with all GSM and CDMA operators. Milind Pathak, Vice President, South Asia, Comviva said, “ Our PreTUPS™ solution has received overwhelming acceptance from operators and subscribers in Bangladesh. Enabling payments and P2P transfers is a compelling proposition – especially in markets where financial networks are relatively weak. PreTUPS™, operators are able to serve the lowest income segments of the market cost-effectively and thereby expand their customer base, which ultimately translates into a more thriving economy and greater economic growth .” About PreTUPS PreTUPS™ is a widely deployed, award-winning electronic recharge solution that performs electronic recharge transactions for over 520 million subscribers . PreTUPS™ has made a real success in Bangladesh where it achieved over 20 million transactions in a single day during Eid. With prepaid dominating emerging markets and the majority of growth coming from these markets, mobile service providers require a proven, highly scalable, flexible solution to handle the growing volumes of transactions and the specific needs of particular segments. Comviva has successfully supported rapid mobile communications adoption in growth markets for close to a decade. Speciality of PreTUPS™ lies in addressing specific challenges of highly competitive, price sensitive markets. Offering flexible denominations, supporting and simplifying extensive distribution hierarchies to enable affordable, cost-effective service delivery are some services PreTUPS™ provides. Earlier, Comviva tied up with Nuance Communications to offer better voice access throughout India which in turn deal to greater intake of VAS content. It  enables electronic transfer of talk time, international airtime transfer, provide a method of directly and indirectly topping-up talk time in the subscriber’s prepaid account via various access channels, including STK, web, SMS, and USSD. BY: Sahil Siddiqui

Tagged as: bangaldesh, bangladesh, deals, facebook, sms, social-media, ussd, web

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3G LG Prada K2 comes with dual camera

by Paul Joseph July 29, 2011 Featured

Tagged as: already-stepped, data, external-memory, Indian, internet-access, lg prada k2 pictures, lg prada k2 price, lg prada k2 review, model, prada, samsung-galaxy, sms, spice-popkorn, time

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LG Univa comes with Android Gingerbread OS

by Paul Joseph July 29, 2011 Featured

LG is one of the best popular electronics manufacturing companies in the world. The company has invented many products like home applicant, electronic device and handholds wireless device. LG Company gets mind blowing response for them. In Indian mobile market LG mobiles reputation spread all over. LG Company is going to launch very soon a new stylish handset that is LG Univa . LG Univa price in India is not known. The LG Univa features and LG Univa specifications are very nice. The LG Univa is presented with 2G and 3G networks. The mobile is a touch bar form factor. The handset is obtained in black color. The internal memory allows data storage features that provides storage of unlimited phone book entries, SMS storage, various and lots of songs and video. The model has MP3, vibration and polyphonic ringtones alerts. The LG Univa comes with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google Talk like social sites with instant messaging.

Tagged as: display-screen, google-talk, india, Indian, internet-access, lg univa, lg univa in india, lg univa pictures, lg univa review, sms, univa-lots, unlimited-phone

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HTC will launch HTC Vigor very soon in India

by Paul Joseph July 29, 2011 Featured

HTC Vigor is a beautiful creation of the HTC Company which is going to launched very soon in Indian mobile market. The company has launched many world class mobiles in the world. The HTC mobiles are made by latest technology. The HTC Vigor price in India is not yet declared.

Tagged as: adobe-flash, digital, htc, htc vigor price, htc vigor review, samsung-galaxy, smartphone, sms, vigor

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