An SMS received by a mobile phone of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S R Reddy's security officer John Wesley after the VVIP helicopter crashed is what provided the most crucial clue to trace the accident site, government officials said here today.
"The most innovative means to locate the accident site of the Bell-430 helicopter was adopted this morning by tracking the signal from a mobile phone of one of the passengers on board the helicopter. The mobile phone had received an SMS at 1206 hours yesterday, about two-and-half hours after the helicopter had gone missing from the radar," they said.
Though they refused to divulge details of the service provider or the contents of the SMS, the officials said with the help of the last signal from the mobile phone the crisis committee set up in Hyderabad decided to concentrate their search for Reddy's helicopter within a four-km radius from the spot where the mobile phone signal was tracked.
On the suggestion of the IAF representative in the crisis committee, two Chetak helicopters from Hakimpet Helicopter Training School (HTS) of the Air Force was launched this morning at 6.30 Hours and after a two-hour search they found the wreckage around 0830 hours.
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After seeking telecom regulator Trai’s intervention regarding the revenue-sharing platform with network operators, mobile value-added
service providers (VASP) are now demanding amendments to the short-code allocation structure, contrary to the network
operators, who feel the current framework is appropriate.
Short codes or short numbers are special telephone numbers like 8888, which are sold to a third-party client for some keyword and a specific period. The entry barrier is high owing to high initial deposit demanded by operators.
Internet and mobile association of India (IAMAI) in its response to a consultation paper released by Trai said, “A short-code assignment system needs to be put in place that is integrated across all operators. That is a single number should be assigned to every content provider, and this code should work across all Mobile
telephone service Providers.”
Currently, telecom operators allocate the short codes, which is in compliance with the framework of national numbering plan by Department of Telecom (DoT).
Cellular operators authority of India (COAI), the representative body of cellular operators, on the other hand said, “the existing regime wherein the short code is allocated by telecom operators as authorized by DoT within the framework of National Numbering Plan is working well and should be continued with.”
Meanwhile, ITC pointed out the challenges of high costs involved in owning and transmitting a short code in the current industry environment, thereby placing a high entry barrier in mobile VAS.
This is a novel concept, instead of billing for a text message of 160 characters like most mobile operators, Indian mobile operator Tata Docomo has just launched a short messaging service, called Diet-SMS, which enables customers to pay on a per-character basis.
“The cost of any Diet-SMS will be only one paise per character used (100 paise= 1 rupee), thereby providing complete value to customers. ”
Deepak Gulati, President Tata Docomo said in a statement – “We broke the per-minute pricing paradigm for voice calls when we launched our services. With Diet-SMS, we are doing it again, this time on the SMS front.”
Tata Docomo is a frontrunner in the pay-per-use business model in the Indian mobile telephony segment. It will not charge for space between words!!
Tata Docomo has launched services in eight telecom circles and a countrywide rollout is expected to be completed this year.
“In all of the eight circles where we have launched our GSM services, we made the promise of introducing path-breaking innovative products and services, and never-before tariff options. Diet-SMS is another way of fulfilling that promise,” said Tata Docomo president Deepak Gulati.
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