Per Second or Per Minute ?

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Tick Tick Tick…..
Do you care about time when you’re on call ? Ofcourse you do, perhaps everyone does. We want to talk for maximum time with minimum charge. It could be confusing, what kind of billing is beneficial for your usage. But not after reading this article !

In the past, there was a time, when operators charged us for incoming as well. More and more people got mobile, more and more networks set up, and call charges reduced. Now we have incoming for free. However, obviously we need to pay for outgoing calls or texts.

For many years, billing is done with Per Minute counting. Certain charge is assigned for a call per minute, depending on destination. Operator’s server counts minutes of usage, and the same amount is updated in your account.

When battle between operators started, to get more and more userbase, some operators came up with new ideas. Per second billing was one of those. The analogy behind it is, you pay for exact use.

How can the billing plan make a difference ?

Minute charging updates counter after 60s. So suppose you talk for 2 Minutes and 20 Seconds, you are billed for 3 minutes. You’re paying for 30s, while you didn’t talk for that time.
Per Second billing is charged for each second of usage. Certain charge is assigned per second, depending on destination. Counter is updated for each second. So with per second plan, when you talk for 2 Minutes and 20 Seconds; equaling 140 seconds, you pay exactly for that time.

Great ! But which one is beneficial for me ?

On an average, most of the GSM providers now charge 50p/min, for per minute billing; and 1p/s for per second billing. You may think that, with per second billing, cost is 60p/min ( MTS has recently come up with a new offer of 1/2 paise/sec). True, but in fact you save.

Per minute plan is great for those talking for longer time. You get 10p less cost than per second billing. You can keep an eye on call timer, and cut call exactly when a minute is about to over. But this trick is not practicable all the time.

If you are a person, liking to talk to the point, per second billing is for you. You will pay only for what you use. However, TRAI allows tolerance of +/- 2s for counting of calls. So it’s normal if you have been charged 1 or 2 paise more, than time displayed on screen.

Based on a survey, most of the people now prefer per second billing, especially prepaid users. Students and cost conscious people tend to opt for per second thing.
Per minute billing is popular for postpaid users and talkative users as well ! Employees of a venture usually get Group calling facility, which helps them to save lots of bucks per minute.
So now it’s your job to determine what kind of user you are, choose a plan likewise and save money !

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Comments (2):

  1. Enterprise Mobility Management

    October 5, 2010 at 9:28 am

    You have made a post with all the myths about the service provider relating to the charges in billing. Thanks for the excellent info

    Reply
  2. Enterprise Mobility Management

    October 5, 2010 at 1:28 pm

    You have made a post with all the myths about the service provider relating to the charges in billing. Thanks for the excellent info

    Reply

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