Vodafone Essar and Research in Motion’s (RIM) BlackBerry announced the launch of BlackBerry service plans for the operator’s prepaid subscribers.

The new tariff plans announced include daily, three-day, weekly and monthly offers.

The services on offer include unlimited access to email,  BlackBerry Messenger services, instant messaging, social networking and internet browsing services. Subscribers will be also offered access to BlackBerry AppWorld for tariff starting at Rs.15 per day.

The tariffs are in the range of Rs.15 per day to Rs.399 per month. Subscribers can access ten supported email accounts including Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Google Mail and chat on popular services including Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk and Yahoo! Messenger.

Blackberry users can display messages from multiple mailboxes in a single inbox and support the viewing of email attachments including  Microsoft Word (.doc), Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt), Microsoft Excel (.xls), and Adobe pdf (.pdf) documents, as well as image files (.jpg, .bmp, .png, .gif, .tiff).

On the launch, Kumar Ramanathan, Chief Marketing Officer, Vodafone Essar Ltd. said, "We are extremely pleased to announce the launch of BlackBerry service plans for our prepaid customers. This segment is highly cost conscious and through the democratization of data services, we are providing an entry threshold at an accessible price point of just Rs. 15 per day. We believe that this initiative will appeal to young professionals, students and a broad spectrum of retail customers who are looking for an exceptional experience for messaging, social networking, email, music and entertainment – on the go! RIM is known for its exceptional mobile communications and strong business reputation and we are delighted to continue our long term alliance. We are certain that our prepaid customers will benefit from the compelling functionality of the BlackBerry solution that’s delivered across our reliable and extensive network in India.”

Frenny Bawa, Managing Director, India, Research In Motion commented, “RIM is delighted to work with Vodafone to introduce smart and flexible BlackBerry service plans for prepaid customers in India. Vodafone's prepaid customers will now be able to stay connected with friends, family and colleagues around the world.”