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Reliance introduces 20 paise Local and STD calls within its network

Reliance gave a christmas gift to its subscribers by Offering a 20 paise calling scheme within its GSM and CDMA networks.
The 20 paise scheme can be availabed by doing a monthly recharge of Rs 27 (for local) and Rs 77 (for local and STD). The recharges can be done on Easy Recharge / online.

  Local All India
MRP Rs. 27 Rs. 77
Benefit Validity 30 Days 30 Days

Reliance is already offering the cheapest calling rates and it is constantly blurring the thin line between STD and Local call rates. Reliance is currently offering three competitive plans.

1. 50 paise per minute for All local and STD calls.
2. Re 1 for every 3 minutes for All local and STD calls.
3. 1p / second calls for Local and STD.

It is expected that other operators will follow suit in a short time

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Reliance Netconnect Broadband and TATA Indicom’s photon should we buy them?

There is a lot of buzz about these two newly launched products from Reliance Infocomm and TATA Indicom, both promises speeds of upto 3.1 Mbps, and both claim this is the fastest broadband plan available in the country. And both claim they are better than any of their nearest rivals, so are all these claims true? Obviously as we know about these two brands not everything is true. Lets see how they fare in their promises.

Speed : 

Though both claim the speeds of upto 3.1 Mbps, TATA Indicom says the speed at anytime can be shared between upto 20 users basically bringing down the Minimum guaranteed speed to 150 Kbps, as same as the normal CDMA plan. . Also they mention the speed depends on time of day, coverage etc.

Atleast TATA Indicom had the coutrtesy to mention contention ratio but Reliance doesnt even mention the minimum guaranteed speed in their website. Even in their comparision chart they have mentioned average speed as 500 Kbps and have mentioned TATA indicom’s avg speed at 400kbps download.

Coverage :

TATA Indicom has extremely poor coverage and is available in Certain parts of Chennai,Bangalore,Mumbai,Jammu and Kashmir and North east. Call TATA Indicom customer care before opting for this as they havent provided any coverage map.

Reliance fares better in this covering 35 cities and covers most part of the cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Ahmadabad etc. Reliance claims to have 4200 towers capable of Wireless broadband and according to Reliance (yes as per reliance comparision chart) TATA Indicom has 300 photon enabled towers.  

So make sure your area is covered before making a jump into wireless broadband.

Truly unlimited ??

Though both these operators have unlimited plans with a price of above Rs.1000 none of them offers true unlimited plans. Both have fair usage policy limiting the usage at 10GB per month. After this 10GB every MB will be charged Rs 2 each. This basically does not allow a high speed connection to its fullest potential. If you stream videos from Youtube or Hulu probably you will fall shortof GB’s  within 10 days. So dont go for these connections till both operators make them “truly unlimited”

Pricing :

Both pricings are on similar lines , Reliance’s nationwide (or 35 cities) access with unlimited costs Rs 1750 whereas Tata’s unlimited (5 cities) costs Rs 1050

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Best wireless internet option in India – Airtel vs Reliance vs BSNL?

Yet again im searching for a wireless internet option in India. When you dont have a permanent residence or if you are in IT industry like me change is the only permanent option. After enjoying few years of uninterrupted high speed broadband access now im pushed to plow the local wireless options which are at best pathetic. But then I dont have a choice. Many of the below mentioned options must be verified in different areas, in your area the results may differ.

Airtel GPRS/EDGE Network :

When was in south I always relied upon Airtel GPRS/EDGE which is very reliable and with prepaid this is one of the cheapest options.

All the below options are unlimited in Airtel (No excess charges) and best part all these options available in Prepaid

Monthly rental : Rs 375  (topup with 375)

Daily pack : send a SMS     GPRS to 56789     (Rs 20 deducted from balance) 24 hour unlimited access.

Weekly pack : send SMS   GPRS7 to 56789  (Rs 75 deducted from balance) 7 days unlimited access. 

APN name : airtelgprs.com  

Username: (leave blank)

password : (leave blank)

If your area has good Airtel Signal then Airtel is the cheapest and best option available. In Mumbai airtel signal is not good in high towers.Whereas in Chennai Airtel is the best. Airtel also has USB and PCMCA data cards available.

Vodafone :

When I tried last time Vodafone was nothing better than Airtel but it was more irritating with lots of restrictions in download limits. It really doesnt have any unlimited options and actually there is no proper data plan in its prepaid. So Vodafone might not make the cut against other operators unless it does something special.

But I remember Vodafone having a Rs 19 recharge for 1 day internet. But this is nowhere to be found nowadays in Vodafone website.

BSNL – (GPRS/EDGE/3G/WLL)

Currently BSNL is the only complete operator with services in all spectrums and speeds of wireless access. Though BSNL at times can be irritating currently the public mobile operator has the best plans in market.

BSNL’s GPRS/EDGE in postpaid is very cheap starting at Rs 150 with unlimited option of Rs 349.  

With its WLL data cards it offers unlimited internet faster than dialup for just Rs 250 per month and this was much better than I expected  even in a rural area. But WLL data cards are allowed to roam only 200 km surrounding your actual locations.So for roaming users throughout India this maynot be best option.

3G is definitely an option to checkout but with its high prcing and low monthly download limits, I wonder anyone will be willing to take the risk. Moreover 3G coverage is limited to certain cities.

Reliance Netconnect :

I never really had good opinion of either Reliance or TATA indicom. But Reliance’s Netconnect with a datacard seems to be very reliable, Im able to get average of 10Kbps download speeds in peak hour (8-9 PM) and decent speeds of 20Kbps download at off peak hours. It is definitely better than a 64 kbps / 128kbps line. But for that matter you should not expect blazing speeds of broadband with this option.

Many users get disappointed because of this misconception, anyway Reliance Netconnect seems to much faster than Airtel/BSNL GPRS/EDGE.  But if you have an option of taking BSNL/Airtel Broadband always go for the broadband lines as Broadband is reliable , cheaper and faster. 

In my case I was getting poor speeds in my hotel bedroom and much higher speeds in the hall. If you are in a relatively open space speed is very good. This was the case with Airtel and BSNL as well. 

TATA indicom walky:

TATA indicom offers unlimited internet through its walky, it definitely depends on the area in whihc you live, If nothing else is available and TATA indicom WLL phone has good reception there is nothing wrong in selecting TATA Indicom’s WLL service walky.