Vodafone India is offering its prepaid and postpaid mobile subscribers free Twitter access for a period of three months starting 29 July.
Under the promotion, users will be able to access mobile.twitter.com or the Twitter Android app without incurring any data charges on the Vodafone network. The operator clarifies that access to mobile.twitter.com would be free only when the subscriber uses the native or default browser.
It also adds that "the Eligible Subscriber would only be charged for connection setup, at 10p/10KB on 2G all circles except Uttar Pradesh (West), Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka and 2p/10KB on 3G and 2G in Uttar Pradesh (West), Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka in case he/she is subscribed to Pay As You Go Tariff at Prevailing Pack Tariff in case he/she has subscribed to any of the Vodafone India Mobile Internet Packs."
Free Twitter access is available only when the subscriber sets the APN to 'www' in the Internet data settings on the phone. The offer is not available to BlackBerry users.
It's also worth pointing out that visiting external links from tweets will lead to users incurring data charges.
Vodafone is also running advertisement messages within the Android Twitter app showing
promotional messages under individual tweets and
pop-up messages when one tries to compose a tweet, as reported by some users. (Hat tip - Pravin
@beingpractical)
It's not the first time an Indian telecom operator has tied up with Twitter to offer free access. In April, Reliance Communications had also tied up with Twitter to
offer a "Twitter Access" program for three months, wherein it offered its GSM subscribers access to Twitter's mobile website and app without levying any extra data consumption charges.