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A recent article in Hindustan Times titled "Mobiles and the value of a paisa," by Sanjit Chatterjee, director, Global Marketing and Strategy, Reve Systems (News - Alert), noted that in India, "there was something that was worth a paisa" – the Indian coin of such little value its minting was discontinued in the 1970s.

For just one paisa, Chatterjee says, "one can talk to someone in the farthest corner of India for one second, or send an SMS of 160 characters to any one of the 600 million mobile phone users in India. Not only that, one can extract more from the service provider if the bill plan is well-chosen."

Of course, Chatterjee noted, "it also depends on the desperation of the service provider to acquire and retain a customer."

Earlier this year TMC's (News - Alert) Stefania Viscusi reported that M Rezaul Hassan, CEO at Reve Systems, said his company is "excited at the opening up of the IP telephony market in Bangladesh.”

The time is not far off, Chatterjee says, "when the mobile revolution will embrace the remaining half of the country -- at a steady rate of adding 20 million new mobile connections every month -- in less than three years. The economies of scale will hopefully extract the India demographic advantage for many more seconds at the cost of a single paisa."

And if your circle of friends extends nationally, he explains, "at Rs.599 ($13.30) per month plan you can talk for 65 hours, packing in 60 minutes of calling for a little over Rs.9 ($2.00)."

And once the mobile VoIP services are available, he says, "the call rates could drop from the current Rs.6.40 (14 cents) per minute at the lower band to as low as Re.1-Rs.2 (2-4 cents) per minute."