Vodafone India launches SMS service for blood donation

Vodafone India has launched an SMS service to enable subscribers to find blood donors or to become donors. To use the service, the user has to send a text message ‘BLOOD’ to 55444. By following the instructions in the subsequent steps, a subscriber can either become a donor or find a donor. Search results are narrowed down to the subscriber's in code. Subscribers will be charged a nominal fee of Rs 1 per SMS for using this service. The service is supported by Innoz, which has partnered with the website IndianBlooddonors.com.

In an official statement Vodafone India states that it is passionate about people, "This latest initiative is in line with its commitment to achieving highest standards of health, safety and well-being in and around its operating environment. As part of its customer connects initiatives, Vodafone intends to make a small and meaningful contribution to saving lives of the needy".

New service lets you become blood donor or find one (Image credit: Getty Images)

Reports last week stated that the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) directed Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular to stop offering 3G voice and data services outside their licensed zones through roaming pacts. Airtel, Idea and Vodafone have acquired 3G licenses in a few circles in the country and have signed roaming pacts with each other to let their subscribers use data services across the country. Bharti, Vodafone and Idea currently have licences to operate 3G services in 13, 9 and 11 circles respectively. They won the bids in the auctions for 3G airwaves in 2010. No company has permission from the government to operate 3G services in all 22 circles in the country.

Vodafone India recently introduced their new tariffs for 3G data plans for its customers. These data plans start from Rs 25 for 25 MB data usage and go up to Rs 1,599 for 12GB of data usage. For any usage beyond the stipulated data usage on each plan, the customers will be charged at the rate of 2 paisa/ 10KB.

The Pay As You Go (PAYG) rate for prepaid customers is being touted by the company as the most competitive and lowest in the market. Vodafone claims that the 2 paisa for every 10KB tariff is 80 percent less than the existing rate. Additionally, Vodafone will now allow its subscribers to use data from the bundled package while roaming on-net across any location in India, without any additional charge.