Free SMS Services available in India | All covered!

I have already reviewed many SMS services on Tech Bangalore, this is the consolidated post on all available SMS services. Free SMS services are important as many of us don’t have free SMSs on our tariff & service providers doesn’t allow free SMS festival occasions. So, I am making a list of available services with small description about each of them.

Free SMS services:

Way2SMS:

Way2SMS is a free SMS service which enable you to send free SMSs to any mobile number in India from web. Just sign up & start sending SMSs. It also has group messaging service. Out of 140 characters of SMS, users are allowed to send 92 character messages. Remaining characters will be used for advertisements. Despite of web interface to send SMS, way2SMS also has wap interface. So, If you have GPRS active on your mobile phone, you can send SMSs via mobile phone also.

Link: www.way2sms.com

You Mint:

You Mint is yet another service similar to Way2SMS which allows you to send free SMSs to any mobile in India via web. It allows 80 characters of message & remaining used for advertisements. You Mint claims “We actually pay you for getting friends signed up to this service!“. You Mint pay users for referring friends to it’s network.

Link: www.youmint.com

Conclusion:

Way2SMS stands out in lot of areas listed below:

• Way2SMS allows 92 characters unlike 80 characters of You Mint
• Number of SMSs per day or to a number are limited in You Mint, unlimited in Way2SMS
• You Mint has time limitations to send SMS, free SMSs are allowed only between 8 AM to 10 PM
• Lack of wap site

Group Messaging Services:

SMS Gup Shup:

SMS Gup Shup is the best available service to send group SMSs. You can create your own group & start sending SMSs. You can use web interface to send SMSs to group of people free of cost. You can also send SMS to your group from you mobile, send SMS to 567673434 & that gets delivered all people in your group.

Link: www.smsgupshup.com
Tech Bangalore Review

Activ Mobs:

Activ Mobs is a Bangalore based group SMS service which enable you to send group messages from your mobile. The idea of Activ mobs is to send message bunch of people for the cost of one SMS. Activ Mobs don’t have any web interface to send group SMSs. This is the SMS only service with registeration & using services are via SMSs only. Activ Mobs uses karnataka local number rather than premium number which reduces the SMS sending cost.

Link: www.inactiv.com

Tech Bangalore Review

Tagg.in:

Tagg.in is a recently entered into group SMS service. Tagg claims it’s not only group SMS system, but also a Micro Blogging platform. Tagg has pretty good interface & simple registeration process. For me, it looks like clone of SMSGupShup with no additional features.

Link: www.tagg.in

Tech bangalore Review

SMS Sharing Service:

Vakow:

We don’t have any competetors in this service, Vakow rules! Vakow is a greate web service for SMSs I have seen. Vakow is to share SMSs with your friends & world. You can use either web interface to post messages or via SMSs. Users can subscribe to other users, rate SMSs posted by others…etc. You can also store personal messages which carries memories (Ex: First proposal you got from a girl/boy ;)). Personal messages can be marked private which will not be visible to anyone else.

Link: www.vakow.com

Tech Bangalore Review

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In my experience Plusmo is the easiest way to mobilize your blog. It makes your blog easily readable on mobile phones. Your blog can be mobilized using plusmo in three easy steps:

1. Go to www.plusmo.com & select a widget to put on your blog.
2. Give your blog URL in next step & click “Fetch”
3. It generates a HTML, copy that code & put it on your blog.

That’s it! Now your visitors can subscribe to your blog through their mobile phone. For first user has to download the Plusmo mobile application, which is small & simple. Later they can add more blogs which they want to read in that application. Browsing blogs in Plusmo application is really fast & simple. You can use your phone’s navigation keys as “Next” & “Previous” to browse next & previous posts of a blog.

Plusmo also has a usage tracking system where you can see how many users are subscribed to your mobile content, number of pageviews..etc. Plusmo has a monetizing option, where they can put ads on your content with your permission & generate revenue out of it.

Go on, mobilize your blog!

It made a very positive impact on my mind at the first look itself. What an interface, looks really great & simple. Coming to service, it apparently looks to me as combination of smsgupshup & twitter! Tagg.in claims itself as SMS group messaging system as well as micro blogging platform. But they are not simply telling like that.

Firstly registration is very easy, you have to fill only three feilds, email, password & verification code (are you human?). You can activate your mobile phone later, but updates via SMS is what looks great. Registration process can also be completed via SMSs. So you need not to have internet to use this service, just remember SMS short codes & their number. Tagg.in uses local number 99801 99801 so you will be less charged by service provider to update via SMS.

After simple registration process, you can create your own group termed as TAGGtivity. Updates to group can be sent using web interface or SMSs. Your followers can follow your updates in either medium. You can subscribe to other popular groups like CricScores, BrkgNews, SportsNews, JokesGuru…etc to get free updates.

Cons:

• You cannot add your friends mobile numbers to your group, they have to sign up or have to send a message from their mobile to follow your updates. SMSGupShup has a feature where you can add mobile numbers of your friends to your group & start sending messages straight away.
• Updates can be made via only two mediums, SMS & web. I still love twitter because it provides lot of ways to update. May be they are going to add these features in final release, this is still in alpha.
• Lack of badges to display your updates on your blogs or web pages.

I feel it still lacks in features when compared with it’s competitor. Let’s wait and see what features they are going to bring in final release.

First have a look at this feature list:

• Main Features: Wireless TV Phone (you can watch two DD channels on the go!), FM radio
• Main Display: 2.6 inch, TFT, 260 thousand color; PX: 240×320px
• Language: English,French,Arabic,Vietnamese,Thai,Russian,other languages depending on quantity
• Frequency: 900/1800MHz/
• Ringtone: 72 chord; Ringtone format: mp3, mp4, midi, wav, amr
• ROM: TF card(256M) , support to extend, Document management
• Camera: 1.3 Mega Pixel; The max output is: 1280*960, support video with sound

Data collected from here searching through Google

Can you guess prize of this phone? 12k? 15k?

Nope! it’s just 4.7k & available in black market. At Bangalore you can find them at National Market & Burma Bazaar.It has got lot of features in it & doesn’t makes hole in your pocket! But I have few of cons about this phone. Here are they:

1. Though it looks good, build is not so good. Keypads are bit OK, touch screen is not so sensitive.
2. Camera clarity is below average, I have not seen good images taken from this phone.
3. Sound quality is also below average. You will definitely get headache if you listen to it more than half an hour through inbuilt speaker.
4. Not able to install any application since it uses it’s own OS & not any standard OS.
5. Problem in configuring GPRS settings, many are commenting on TB asking help.
6. No idea on which company manufacturing these phones, no warranty.
7. Since these phones are not officially released in India, it might be illegal to use these phones.

The only big PLUS I have seen in this phone is TV. It is so clear & you can watch it in widescreen. You can watch live cricket telecast while traveling if it is broadcasted by Door Darshan. There are lot of other phones with different set of features & different price tags. For me it’s not a good go with the above list of cons. I still love Nokia, Sony Erricson & Motorola models.

It’s hard time for Blackberry in India. Some Indian security agencies have asked RIM (Research In Motion, Blackberry maker) to provide algorithm to decrypt messages. If they don’t, It may lead to termination of Blackberry services in India! RIM is in touch with Indian government to resolve this issue.

Government has some security concerns to be addressed by RIM. RIM is providing Blackberry services around 130 countries in compliance with regulatory requirements of governments. But no other government has asked them to provide their algorithms. Their algorithm is the big plus to them, & they might not want to share it.

Blackberry is a very powerful service offering email & internet services on the go. It’s been one of the best business phones available. Banning it might cause lot of loss to India itself. Hope they will come to some sort of agreements with government to continue services in India.

More detailed post about the issue is at Business Standards

Image from SugarSync.com

It happens a lot of time at office, somebody asks me any document or e-book, I reply them confidently “Yeah! I have that”. Then looks into e-book folder of my office computer, “Oh! shit, they are on my home PC”. Now it doesn’t happens, as I have synced all e-books & important documents with Sugar Sync.

Sugar Sync syncs your files across computers (PC & also Mac), phone & accessible via secured web interface. Sign up at Sugar Sync & install sugar sync client on computer which you want to sync files. Select & add files to sync & Sugar Sync syncs all your files in background. It takes very less bandwidth of your internet connection & syncs files to Sugar Sync server. If you make any modifications to these files, those modifications will be automatically synced. So you will be having latest revision of your files across computers. Sugar Sync also provides a web interface to access your synced files. It creates a custom URL like yourname.sugarsync.com to access your files from any computer around the world which has internet connection. The web interface is secured like your banking login page & you will need to login with your username & password to access files. Files from your phone can also be synced & also access synced files on the go on phone!

Invite Only:

Sugar Sync in currently in beta phase & invite only. You will need a invite from Sugar Sync’s existing member to have a shot. Currently I have only 7 invites with me, so first seven visitors can make use of this invite at https://www.sugarsync.com/entercode?code=IWPAJX. I have sent a mail to Sugar Sync support to provide more invites, will update if they provide. Please do share invites in comment section after signing up.

Reply from SugarSync:

Hello Prashanth,

Thank you very much for your interest in SugarSync! Due to the fact that we’re so close to our production launch, we are unable to extend additional invitations to any new sites.

We sincerely appreciate the request and will keep you in mind as we begin rolling out SugarSync more broadly.

Thanks again,

Sean
Sr. Manager, Customer Support

So you will need to wait for few days to get invite.

This is similar to USB internet data card provided by Reliance & Tata Indicom on CDMA technology. But this is from Vodafone on GSM platform through EDGE technology . You have to insert a SIM card into this modem & connect it to your laptop or desktop to have internet access. Vodafone website has not specified anything about speed, but they claim “speed that’s three times faster than your wired dial-up connection”, anyway I don’t believe in that! In India it connects to Vodafone EDGE network, so you can have access to internet wherever Vodafone network exists. Vodafone says “Gives 3G Broadband speeds when you travel abroad” as 3G is not implemented in India.

Charges & Tariff:

Vodafone Mobile Connect USB Modem will cost you Rs.6,499. Aw! that’s too expensive, HCL Laptop is available for 13,990! There are two monthly plans:

Overall this service is too much expensive :(. But if you don’t worry to pay for enjoying mobility, then this is the better one to go for. I heard Tata Indicom & Reliance data cards are extremely slow even in Bangalore!
More details on Vodafone Website

If you use many micro blogging services like twitter, jaiku, pownce….etc, probably you will different bunch of people following you on different services. So you will need to update each of the services to send update to all followers. Hellowtxt helps you in updating all services at once. Registration at Hellotxt is not mandatory, but you will need to fill appropriate username & password for services you want to update. If you register at Hellotxt, this will be a one time process & Hellotxt will save your usernames & passwords for all services. Next time you will need to enter only Hellotxt username & password & can update all services. Hellotxt also works superbly on wap browser, I tried myself on basic entry level handset Nokia 2626.

Link: www.hellotxt.com

I am starting Future Tech catogory in Tech Bangalore with this post. It just my view on future technology & future possibilities. So what am talking about here, assume a virtual mobile phone on your PC which you can call , SMS & all basic functions you do with your mobile phone. Ya, I know it’s already there, provided by many companies online to ,make international calls for cheaper rates. But what am talking about is, it should be provided & connected to your current service provider. Say for example, You have Airtel prepaid connection on your actual mobile phone, & Airtel will also provide a desktop application to call, sms…etc. Your desktop client (virtual phone) will be linked with Airtel Prepaid account & you will be charged as per your plan. Options may also be provided for syncing your actual phone with virtual phone for contacts, messages etc.

Advantages:

1. You can avoid microwave radiations by using virtual phone on PC.
2. Better call experience, because of using mic & speakers of computer.
3. Messaging will be much faster with typing on keyboard. Typing on mobile even using t9 dictionary is a hassle.
4. No need of mobile handset, if you are always online!

This is technically feasible as per my knowledge.