IPL: Vodafone cuts roaming rates for users in South Africa

The country's second largest cellular services provider, Vodafone Essar, on Friday announced reduction in international roaming rates for its postpaid customers traveling to South Africa during the IPL Twenty20 cricket tournament beginning on Saturday.

Vodafone Essar is the official partner of the second edition of the Twenty20 tournament. Vodafone Essar has tied up with Vodacom, a joint venture partner with the Vodafone Group, to offer reduced rates, a company statement said.

The postpaid customers can select Vodacom as their default network while roaming in South Africa during IPL and enjoy up to 85 per cent discount on calls, SMS and GPRS services, it said.

Customers can make local and international calls at Rs 12.6 per minute and Rs 34.8 per minute respectively.

All local incoming calls will be charged at Rs 12.5 a minute and SMS at Rs 5 per message, which are special discounted rates during the tournament that will continue for over a month.

Special benefits would be extended to Vodafone's GPRS users who would get 85 per cent discount on the data usage with a minimal charge of 90 paise per 10kb of data usage.

The offer is applicable to all Vodafone Essar postpaid customers in South Africa till the IPL finals on May 30, the release said.

Meanwhile, Cellcast Interactive India, a mobile participation content company, announced that it had signed a deal with TMT Investment of Singapore to distribute content for the IPL through its SMS/IVR/USSD messaging platform.

Cellcast has packaged IPL mobile content for various mobile operators and will offer subscription packs of Rs 49.00 per month and Rs 99.00 for the entire tournament, a company statement said.