Cellular Tariffs: Our Culture of Criticism and Discontentment

This is a Guest Post By Asad Ur Rehman, who wrote this article as general mobile phone user. Professionally, Asad is a specialist in Human Resource Management.

Ever since Pakistan came into being every thing got costly by every passing day. Inflation has risen much but there is only one product or service which even in the era of inflation and recession is getting cheaper and affordable with the time is Cellular Service.

But even then we people are not contented on it and want more and more.

Tariffs for Calls, SMS and GPRS/EDGE have come down from Rupees to Paisas but still we are not happy. Every now and then a company announces some new package for subscribers but still we don’t feel good.

We are having the cheapest cellular services in the world but still we don’t fell satisfied. The thing is that this discontentment and criticism has become a part of our life. Positive criticism is good but criticizing on every other thing is not good.

Just a brief overview of how much cellular services have gone cheaper in last 4-5 years is as below.

• Incoming calls are now free anywhere in Pakistan which were previously charged while in roaming.
• SMSs which were charged at 1.50 Rs-2 Rs/Sms are now not more than 1 paisa/Sms.
• Outgoing Calls which were previously being charged at 6-7 Rs/minute are now charged at around 1-1.50 Rs/minute. Moreover on nominal charges one can talk for hours and make free calls whole day.
• GPRS which was charged as per usage is now being charged per hour or different GPRS & MMS buckets are available at cheapest possible rates.
• Many more things like new connection charges, replacement charges, roaming charges have been slashed and many more innovative services have been introduced frequently by every cellular company.

But we try to find a negative point in every service. Some days back Mobilink introduced Jazz Jazba. Every one continued to show its negative picture but no one talked about its reduced international SMS charges, its nominal charges to call on FnF whole day whole night and more. Same goes with Ufone when they introduced Uth package, every one talked about its daily 1 Rs deduction but only some of them applauded. Same goes with M9, Djuice and many more.

One thing which we should not forget is that all these companies are private companies and they will do business as long as are having profits and hence they have to find new ways and services to earn it.

Also, if mobile companies are having profits – we shouldn’t forget that they are giving us something in return. And moreover no one is forcing any one to use a service. It’s by our very own choice.

Pinched by price war, the day they will be in loss they will pack up and move to somewhere else hence putting lot of professionals and families in trouble.