Google extends free SMS chat service to Indian users
SME News, Thursday, Oct 11, 2012 16:18:02 PM IST
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NEW DELHI: Internet giant Google has announced the extension of its free SMS chat service to the Indian users.
Now, the Indian users can also access Gmail SMS feature along with 51 other countries in Asia, Africa and North America. In 2011, Google had made this feature available to its users in some African countries.
With the help of the free Gmail SMS service users can send text messages to mobile phones via Gmail Chat. The responses to the SMSs will appear as replies in Gmail Chat and conversations will be stored in users' Chat history, like regular chats.
On October 10, Google has activated the feature for Indian users and is available for regular Gmail users as well as those on Google Applications.
The free Gmail SMS service in India is available on eight major mobile service operators: Aircel, Idea, Loop Mobile, MTS, Reliance, Tata DoCoMo, Tata indicom and Vodafone (Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal & Andaman and Nicobar, Assam, North East).
However, this feature is not yet available on the Google Talk app, also referred to as GTalk, installed on computers.
Initially, users are given a credit of fifty messages and for every message sent the credit decreases by one and for each message received in response to a text message sent via Gmail Chat, the user's credit increases by five, up to a maximum of 50. When the SMS credit goes down to zero, one credit is added after 24 hours.
