Why charge us more, ask mobile users
Residents are accustomed to extra charges imposed by mobile service providers.
Chennai: Though residents are accustomed to extra charges imposed by mobile service providers every year, a section of people is agitated over the move as the city is yet to get back its ‘normalcy’ tag.
Rate cutters and message boosters will not assist the high-spirited Chennaiites as they have to obey the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) rules in helping the mobile networks gain profits.
Many slum dwellers in Tambaram who were evicted, desperately need free messaging service to inform their relatives about their whereabouts. Regional exceptions can be provided in disaster-affected areas which would be a relief for many flood victims, said G. Soumya, a professor at Egmore.
S. Sivakumar, who owns a mobile service centre, said, “Despite having rate cutters, customers of Reliance, Docomo and BSNL have to pay extra sums for calls and messages. But Vodafone, Airtel and Aircel grant a little relief to their customers as they just need to pay for messages (which are Re 1 for local and Rs 1.50 for national).”
Customer Service head of Airtel said “When the city was in crisis, we extended our helping hand by offering free internet and extra advance talk time.” It was difficult to provide exceptions for New Year day.
When a BSNL Sub-divisional engineer was contacted, she said the network had compensated the move with other user-friendly options.