Taking the GSM competition head-on, Tata Teleservices brand franchise Virgin Mobile, reduced its STD and local call rates to 50p/min. The catch here is that this call rate can only be enjoyed after a user is done with his/her initial three minutes of local and STD calls which would cost Rs 1.50/min and Re 1/min respectively.

Virgin Mobile, which is a youth centric telecom service, has made an excellent move by slashing the STD charges. According to a recent industry research, STD calls comprises of around 25% of the total bill amount of an urban young subscriber. So this offer will definitely meet the behavioral needs of youth customers by providing a value proposition on long distance calling.

The much hyped and talked about YoYo ad by Virgin Mobile is making rounds amongst the youth. But what does the Ad trying to convey? The Ad basically talks about how, through Virgin, you can make free calls to your pals.

The plan communicated in the Ad is the Vpower Plan. Pay Rs.28 per month and get calls to other Virgin Mobile numbers @ 10paise. It works like a YoYo because the person you call earns the same amount thus making it FREE. There is a condition to the plan which goes like this:

• Calls to a Local Virgin Mobile India number will be charged @ 10p/min only till first 700 VMI minutes or 30 days from the date of recharge (whichever is earlier)
• No talktime or validity
• This recharge is not applicable on a Demo/Employee/ Virgin 2 Virgin Plan or any other non-commercial plans

Virgin Mobile’s another bait for new customers. With every Virgin Mobile handset purchase, the csutomer will get:

• Free Prepaid Connection
• Free Lifetime Validity
• Free Talktime Worth Rs. 100
• Free 500 SMS

We say: Virgin mobile is trying to lure customer by offering such freebies, but somehow it doesn’t seem to be working for them. They need to bring in some new, mid and high-end handsets to attract today’s young generation.

Monday: Tata Indicom reveals its Platinum Postpaid Plan and we decided to peek inside this full value offer.

Tuesday: MTNL is definitely considering their customer’s criticism. Apart from offering basic cellular services, they are rolling out new services just like the recent MTNL Live which is a Live Photo Sharing Service.

Thursday: Virgin Mobile’s another vPower recharge enables a user to call other Virgin Mobile users at 10 paise/min.

Friday: The fire in one of the buildings in Mumbai halted Airtel services in many parts of the city. According to Airtel 90% of the services has been restored but many readers are still complaining about the disconnection.

Official statement released by Airtel said “To alleviate our customers’ issues, we have also proactively rerouted calls to ensure continued service. Also, majority of the impacted customers were not charged for the calls made.”

Virgin Mobile introduced another vPower recharge voucher that allows Virgin Mobile to Virgin Mobile calling at 10 paise per minute. This voucher is priced at Rs 28 and comes with a validity of 30 days.

One of the most amazing thing about this voucher is that, wherein one Virgin Mobile user is spending 10 paise per minute to make the call, another Virgin Mobile user is earning 10 paise per minute to receive the call, which means that calling is virtually free but of course you will have to shell out Rs 28 every month to make this whole thing work.

Monday: Last week marked the sixth death anniversary of Mr. Dhirubhai Ambani and we at Tele Gyaan decided to pay him a small tribute.

Tuesday: Check out the cheapo vBling from Virgin Mobile. A flap phone for tight pockets. The latest update in the 3G spectrum scene is that DoT denied the allocation for CDMA operators. We know that these operators won’t gulp this pretty easily.

Wednesday: As one of our commenter points out “i hav been hearing since last yr
god knws when idea really hitz in mumbai circle”. And we thought the same initially but now they are raring to go. August is the month of the expected launch.

Thursday: Reliance is offering Jaadu Pack for Rs. 35. Check out the details here.

Friday: MTNL’s lifetime prepaid Jeevan Saathi has got cheaper. Now available for Rs. 149.

Virgin Mobile’s latest offering, vBling wants to tap those who wants a classy looking phone for a cheap price. Available at just Rs. 2499, the phone packs all the Virgin Mobile goodness like lifetime validity and access to vBytes (Virgin Mobile’s WAP download service).

On the feature front, the all silver phone sports two display screens, weighs on the lighter side at 72 grams, FM Radio and comes preloaded with games and other multimedia stuff.

Virgin Mobile

Correction: vBytes is not WAP enabled but it allows users to download ringtones, wallpapers etc. More info on vBytes.

vSleek is one of the good looking phones in Virgin Mobile’s arsenal. It boasts an ultra-thin designer body and comes along with features like a VGA camera, MP3 player, FM radio, loud speaker, microSD card slot and an option of Hinglish SMS. This candybar is priced at Rs 4799.

All the above is said and heard, but the price of this cell phone seems to be on the upper end when compared to other phones in the market. If you thought so, here’s what Virgin is trying to compensate you for that ask.

Continue Reading…

This week was an interesting one. It started off with scrutinizing Vodafone’s moves which announced to its customers that the STD charges are further dropped as the same as MTNL. Later in the day, we informed about Virgin Mobile’s weekend recharge.

M-Commerce is very nascent at this stage in India. But BPL Mobile took a bold step of introducing it to its customers which is currently in collaboration with NGPay. Now this is something interesting from Vodafone. SMS them and you get a small but useful amount of recharge balance. Scheme is called as Chhota Credit and has some conditions to be fulfilled.

We have said this too many times before that MTNL is an underdog. And the reason they lack behind other operators is their inadequate marketing campaigns. But now a campaign is running across the city which is trying to turn the tables for the government owned operator. A new entrant in the market for international SIM cards is V-Tel. They claim to save up to 95% on roaming charges.

The tussle with the government and RIM is still not solved. In the latest release, they have denied to share the encryption key giving the deserved security to its customers. Brave move, I must say! We all know that Virgin Mobile is the only operator which pays you for incoming. So why not profit from it? Check out our analysis to earn yourself a decent income.

Reliance has announced their lifetime incoming plan will also be available for Rs. 299. And lastly it is BSNL who is ‘begging’ the government to allot free spectrum for WiMAX while the rest of the pack will play a hefty amount. This will cause a furor, if government allots them.