An invitation for a concert, a reminder about your monthly meeting, a call for blood donation, a special offer from your favourite salon or a tip- off about a prospective job – more often than not, came in the guise of simple text message! But of late, you may have observed a significant drop in these instant updates, thanks to the sms limit imposed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).
Though earlier this week, the TRAI raised the limit to 200 sms a day from the previous cap of 100 sms, users- both individuals and organizations -- are not particularly happy with the changes.
“Allowing 200 SMS is better than100, but is definitely not the same as unlimited SMS,” says Ist Year student Sathya. “We don’t talk to all our school friends everyday but ensure we stay in touch through SMA. Text messages are one-stop solution for passing information to the whole class.”
The ceiling was introduced in September to curb pesky marketing SMS and unsolicited spam messages. While the debate rages on that the attempt has not completely blocked out telemarketing SMS-es, many are caught desperately looking for alternatives to surmount the cap with online chat, free SMS websites, dual sim phones and phone pooling among the most preferred.
It is no news that SMS is considered the easiest and cheapest means of communication. Booster packs offering 750, 1000 or unlimited SMS were the icing on the cake, particularly for students living on shoe-string budgets . Various civil society organizations, clubs and volunteer groups also relied on text messages to communicate with members en masse. But if a text exceeds the character limit and runs into two messages, then only 100 people receive the communication.
Sriram, a member of cultural organization, Darshan is clueless on how to go about inviting people for their next big event. “I guess we will have to start sending out invitation cards. We have tried using online websites that allow free SMS, but our messages to users registered under the do not disturb category were all blocked.”
Upadates – SMS!
Even if communication is done by snail mail, e-mail or social networking sites, text messages are ideal for instant updates and last minute changes. Some like Rotarian Abdul Khalique had to resort to pooling phones to communicate changes at an important district level meeting.
“We found the sms cap a huge setback when we had to update 600 members registered for a district seminar. I borrowed phones from four other members who had the same database, and even then succeeded in passing on the information only to 400 people.”
Text messages are imperative in finding out dinner options or notify changes in timings, for which telephone calls are deemed superfluous. Besides not everyone may carry a laptop or has access to internet on cell phones.
Public relation officers and event managers also find themselves caught in a soup as a host of messages are sent to various parties in the run-up to an event and after it. A dual sim phone or switching between two sim cards is the alternative route media co-ordinator Senthilkumar has taken: “Some people are hesitant in responding to messages from an unknown number, so one cannot bank on using a friend’s phone all the time. It is impossible to keep calling people in the middle of an event or press conference. Also you cannot call up people for every single clarification or confirmation.”
Good causes
That the SMS works for a good cause cannot be denied with blood donor organisations, environmental campaigns suffering a setback in communicating with volunteers. The recent India Against Corruption movement in support of Anna Hazare was fuelled by text messages exhorting people to support Hazare by gathering at a designated venue at a specified time.
“When we call for an impromptu meeting, it is difficult to get the message through to all the members. Not everyone is hooked to social networking all the time and how many people can you call up?” laments Narayan, secretary of a volunteer group. “Besides only the first 100 sms are free. The next 100 costs!”
