Arun 795 Report post Posted May 11, 2004 TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ MONDAY, MAY 10, 2004 01:35:16 AM ] Many cellphone users, with roaming facilities, are angry with mobile service providers for sending them Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's message - both recorded and SMS, urging the electorate to vote for the BJP. "Large number of roaming facility users who received such calls carrying a recorded message of the Prime Minister had to shell out money for it. We have received several such complaints from the users, but we, as mobile service providers, were bound to pass such messages which were through auto diallers to the called number. At times, roaming facility users abroad received such calls at odd hours to the great annoyance of the users who were not only disturbed in their sleep, but had to pay for receiving the call," said Sunil Mittal, chairman and managing director of Bharti Tele Venture, a service provider. The BJP, as part of its election campaign, used both mobiles and fixed lines to send across Vajpayee's recorded message. The whole exercise cost the party a fortune as millions of such calls were made across the country. In several cases, calls were received by mobile and landline users even on the day of the poll. Mittal said several telecom providers were engaged for sending the message across the country to the users. Some times, the calling numbers were displayed on the screen and sometimes it was not displayed on the screen. "We were duty-bound to pass on the calls routed thro-ugh us and we were totally helpless if our customers felt offended. According to Indian laws, no call can be stopped by any service provider and as per TRAI stipulation all such calls had to be charged to the customers if on roaming. We could only apologise to the customers for inconvenience caused to them," said Mittal. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
emmi 3 Report post Posted May 11, 2004 Technology is a boon but if used incorrectly can prove to be a bane. Even Chandrababu naidu used this strategy and sent sms s to every tom , **** and harry in the state , and the net result lost miserably. May be its time the politicians relialized that technology OVERLOADING can lead to DOS(Denial OF voteS) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sunil_jok 2 Report post Posted May 12, 2004 i thought campaigning should be stopped 48 hours before election. did the election commission read this? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ganesh 0 Report post Posted May 12, 2004 well i got ataljees call when i was in chennai and under roaming. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mahidhar 3 Report post Posted May 13, 2004 talking about politics, Mr Anil Ambani went and met sonia gandhi ... wonder what the reason was ... propagate his broadband service ? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
city02 63 Report post Posted May 14, 2004 well i got ataljees call when i was in chennai and under roaming. well at least its not a problem anymore since incoming roaming is now free! talking about politics, Mr Anil Ambani went and met sonia gandhi ... wonder what the reason was ... propagate his broadband service ? You guys think too small! That would have been just part of the agenda. I think that further power sector reform, and maintaining entry/tariff barriers to foreign competitors would have had greater weight. Also increasing FDI limits in telecom... Possibly even increasing penalties on fraud, or (for the really paranoid) how about the power to launch investigations under the guise of 'national security' into people/orgs that try to exploit their technology weaknesses without warrants from a court? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Arun 795 Report post Posted May 14, 2004 well i got ataljees call when i was in chennai and under roaming. well at least its not a problem anymore since incoming roaming is now free! Receiving incoming calls when roaming isn't free. Only thing is there is no 'extra' charges for receiving calls while roaming, which other operators charge now. Call forwarding charges are applicable while roaming as per the tariff plan subscribed. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
