Although many of us choose to use Twitter clients like Seesmic Desktop, Tweetdeck, or Twitteriffic to access Twitter using computers or mobile devices, much of the world doesn't have convenient or cheap access to these tools. That's where SMS comes in. Remember, Twitter was originally designed with SMS specifically in mind; the 140-character message limit was designed to work with SMS's 160-character limit - and it does so easily and conveniently for tens of thousands of users in many countries.

Up until now, unfortunately, India wasn't one of those countries. Twitter signs deals with mobile carriers to negotiate special rates for SMS traffic to and from Twitter; in some countries, sending and receiving SMS to and from Twitter is completely free; in others, users pay only for sending messages and pay nothing for receiving them. Until this week, however, Tweeple in India didn't have access to either of those options; using Twitter via SMS was an expensive proposition for the average Indian citizen, presenting a fairly huge barrier to entry in that country.

Until, that is, Twitter announced on their blog this week that they've negotiated a deal with Bharti Airtel,, India's largest mobile provider, to give users of the mobile network the chance to send SMS to Twitter at the standard SMS rate and receive SMS completely for free - meaning that India's population of Twitter users is about to increase substantially. SMS-based microblogging in India is wildly popular, as proven by 100% SMS-based Indian microblogging platform SMSGupshup. SMSGupshup, as we discussed back in May, has made significant inroads in India by offering their users free SMS traffic to and from the service, themselves paying for the SMS usage with in-message advertising (SMSGupshup allows 120 characters; the remaining characters are used for advertising).

Now that Twitter offers a similar service at similar prices (sending Tweets via SMS will still cost them, but they'll have a significantly larger space to write those tweets in since SMSGupshup's advertising won't be present), we can expect to see a significant increase in the number of Indian Tweeple - as one of the world's most populous countries, India represents a significant opportunity for Twitter-based marketers.

We're just glad to see that more people are gaining convenient access to Twitter - when events happen suddenly, sometimes you don't have time to run home to your computer or take a trip to the internet cafe. Sometimes you only have your cell phone, and that's the power of Twittering via SMS - it's a technology that's available in almost every country in the world and supported on virtually every cell on the market.

Welcome to Twitter, Indian SMS users!