India's third largest mobile operator, Idea Cellular who delivered in many ground breaking ideas in Indian telecom industry, is all way to introduce a new breakthrough service to its prepaid subscribers in Rajasthan.
Now with Idea's "Emergency Internet Usage Service" one can enjoy 'uninterrupted internet access' even with zero balance.Idea explains that there is growing userbase, irrespective of rural or urban landscape, who are accessing internet for many reasons - be it social networking or information search or mobile recharge or online shopping.
But when your balance ended up in zero, your internet access is restricted, which means you can't recharge immediately over internet also. Now forget all these inconvenience.
From now Idea 2G prepaid customers in Rajasthan with balance less than Rs 2 will able to use upto 50MB free internet for 2 days, by dialling 53566 or *666# (both toll free) anytime, anywhere from their mobile phones.
Note that on your subsequent recharge/Top-up Rs 5 will be deducted from the user's prepaid account.
Our Take:
This concept has been tried on voice or sms but that did not get much attraction. But this new idea of using internet at zero balance has its own charm. Mobile internet is getting popular day by day, and young generation prefers online transaction too. What happen if your internet pack exhausts at 1 am? 50 MB is good enough to make a online recharge. And Idea charges very economically, just Rs 5 for 50MB valid for 2 days. I guess Idea is just running the pilot in Rajasthan, and will launch the same in other circles in future.
