back to article Indian carriers forced to send TXT for every 10 megabyte download

India has decided its mobile carriers must inform subscribers every time they download ten megabytes of data. New rules (PDF) posted last week also contain a new provision that will force carriers to switch off mobile data access on receipt of a single text message. Not all of India's mobile carriers have a national footprint …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "I would hear the vibration of her handset through the call as she received an SMS"

      (1) Yes, that's exactly what it was.

      (2) We completely believe you that she is (a) real and (b) "girl" and (c) "friend".

      Heh... "used up her bundle"... hehehehe....../

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      500Mb Allowance

      According to the likes of EE and Tesco Mobile that is truly massive.

      As an aside...

      The poor carriers have gotta make some money from all those pushed W10 updates haven' they?

      {yes I know that a connection can be configured as metered but how many normal users will know how or simply not bother to do this}

  2. Roq D. Kasba

    Not much data, but then not rich target audience

    Mobile data, especially when it sets itself to roaming without leaving the shores, is so convenient but boy is it costly. Where it's possible to earn less a month than the cost of my sim-only phone package, it makes sense to have clear national consistency. 10MB may be irritatingly small for those of us who live online, but for an emerging market it makes a lot of sense.

    I use ~15-20 GB of mobile data monthly across two providers, I shudder to think hire many nag texts I'd get, mind ;-)

  3. Raj

    What's the point of responses that go "this sounds like a bad idea because <insert completely unrelated use case for another much more data-intensive country>" ? This is an India-specific solution for cost conscious mobile subscribers who want to access mobile data, but keep a tab on the costs. It's a reflection of a system that understands the needs of its consumers and acts quickly and decisively to provide it.

    1. John H Woods Silver badge

      @Raj

      "What's the point of responses that go 'this sounds like a bad idea because <insert completely unrelated use case for another much more data-intensive country>'" -- Raj

      Sorry, Raj -- I think many UK readers will find the idea of the government making a quick fix response to protect consumers from telcos such an alien concept that it will make their heads spin. As it was a quick fix, I don't suppose there's much to stop them refining the rules quickly in future as circumstances change. But from the point of view of someone who lives in a country where the 650 idiots in the building with the clock couldn't come up with a useful, even if somewhat flawed, regulation within the lifetime of one parliament, it's very confusing!

  4. ratfox

    My first SMS while visiting India was "You can also surf the web here with roaming". The second was "Entertain yourself! Watch a few videos on www.YouTube.com".

    Nice try…

  5. Crisp

    So downloading Ubuntu @ 883 MB evaluates to...

    88 sodding text messages that need deleting.

    1. Tromos

      Re: So downloading Ubuntu @ 883 MB evaluates to...

      88 sodding text messages AND a copy of Ubuntu that need deleting.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: So downloading Ubuntu @ 883 MB evaluates to...

        Hehe I like ubuntu but this made me laugh.

        Not sure why you would want to download ubuntu to your phone though

  6. Dan 55 Silver badge

    Perhaps this is why Android One was a failure

    A 10MB data bundle wouldn't last five minutes with all that background data transfer that seems to be so necessary on the Android platform.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Even if the regulation makes sense today

    How long will it be before they revisit it? This would have been quite reasonable in the US a decade ago, but it probably would have long outlived its usefulness, and drove the early iPhone owners crazy making their unlimited data more like unlimited annoyance!

    Wouldn't it make more sense to warn at 50% and 90% of your data allotment? If you get 10MB then then you warn at 5MB and 9MB. Those with bigger data allotments or who buy a bunch of data at once (either because they have a more generous carrier or are rich) don't have to get all the warnings they don't need.

  8. Old Handle

    This would be a whole lot more reasonable if they made 10MB the default warning level but allowed customers to easily change it (by sending a text, of course). I'll trust the government knows what they're doing enough that for the majority of mobile users there, 10MB is a large amount, but surely this doesn't apply to everyone. I mean parts of India do have 4G service.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And on the other hand, in some very rural areas I can well imagine 10 MB would cost a week's pay and they'd prefer to be alerted earlier that they were running up a huge bill.

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