Loop, R-Com join per-second billing bandwagon

With or without a nudge from the government, mobile operators are increasingly offering per-second billing plans just in order to keep up with the competition. On Wednesday both Reliance Communications, India's second-largest mobile services provider, and Loop Mobile, which has a strong presence in the Mumbai circle, announced per-second billing plans.

As recently as Monday, R-Com had said it was considering a per-second billing option, although its focus would be on its existing plans, which it said were the cheapest in the industry (See: Reliance Communications mulls per-second billing). Now it has gone ahead and launched the scheme.

Last week, both Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Essar announced its per-second tariff plan. Meanwhile, Loop Mobile also announced that it would charge its pre-paid customers one paisa per second for all local and STD calls. This offer is applicable to all new and existing prepaid users of Loop Mobile. The existing subscribers can avail of this offer by buying a recharge card of Rs48.

As for R-Com, it will charge subscribers 1paise per second for all calls, including STD and roaming calls, while each SMS will cost 50 paise. This is in addition to the 50 paise plan that it announced in October.

For calls that last for three minutes or more, customers will be charged Re1 for every three minutes of talk time. ''The launch of the Simply Reliance plan in October was very well received in the market, both by customers and trade. Customers across India have appreciated our endeavour to offer single, simple and transparent tariff on all local, STD and roaming calls,'' said R-Com president Mahesh Prasad.

"We now extend the Simply Reliance initiative by offering two new products catering to varied customer needs with the same simplicity and unconditional transparency," Prasad added.