Mobitel’s SMART Freedom tariff options - a first in South Asia

by Surekha Galagoda

[email protected]

Mobitel, the National Mobile Services Provider, revolutionised the Pre Paid segment of the mobile telephony business in Sri Lanka with the launch of its SMART Freedom suite of tariff options, a first in South Asia.

It offers Mobitel SMART customers free Mobitel to Mobitel voice calls, video calls and SMSs. SMART Freedom is offered to all existing and new SMART Pre Paid customers, with its tariff options designed as add-ons that can be opted on a daily or weekly basis.

The new tariff options have been introduced to offer greater ease for Sri Lankans thus enabling them to enjoy the freedom that should be a part of the mobile telephony experience.

The SMART Freedom tariff offers two tariff options which includes a daily rental of Rs. 50 or a weekly rental of Rs. 270 and the applicable taxes and levies.

All Mobitel’s SMART Pre Paid users can opt for one of two add-on Freedom tariff options and during the time period that SMART Freedom is activated, the following M2M benefits which include outgoing and incoming M2M voice calls, outgoing and incoming M2M video calls, outgoing M2M SMS and incoming calls from any network are available free 24 hours of the day.

3G handsets are required for users to avail themselves of free M2M video calls offered as an integral part of the SMART Freedom package.

This is possible due to Mobitel installing the Super 3.5G’ network infrastructure, which has repeatedly proven to be the most robust of all networks, and is ideal for this facility as it possesses more capacity to cater to the stringent requirements which are expected to arise from the anticipated high demand of the SMART Freedom community discovering the ease of video calling.

This is especially true as the M2M video calling facility is increasingly becoming a must have means of communication among the upwardly mobile, progressive segments of the mobile telephony community. Chief Executive Officer, Mobitel, Suren J. Amarasekera, said, “we have fulfilled our obligation as the national telecom provider by revolutionising the pre paid segment of mobile telephony.

We have seen Sri Lankans using more than one mobile phone with different numbers or perhaps even switching SIM cards to find their way around the price regulations imposed by the different operators in inching towards their freedom of telephony.

“Until now, they have had to incur huge cost burdens or suffer in silence and not be able to talk to business associates, loved ones and friends. SMART Freedom is in the enviable position of breaking down the barriers imposed on domestic calls as well as text messaging by offering free M2M and people will no longer be hassled for wanting to make a simple mobile phone call.

We believe that this the only tariff option for any truly intelligent citizen of Sri Lanka who wants to benefit from true mobile democracy by joining the SMART community.”

Any existing or new SMART customer can upgrade their standard SMART package to any of the SMART FREEDOM tariff options by simply sending an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) string at which time the applicable rental will be deducted and the preferential tariff will apply.