raccoon

Sorry, don't know how I missed this thread after posting. Anyway, ami1 has answered it very well. If you ask me, the risk of allowing the govt. such free access to confidential data is not any less risky than the risk that terrorists may use this mode for their activities. Besides, this particular issue is just hilarious. With all this publicity do you think terrorists will ever use BB for their correspondence? There are way better ways. Just imagine how easy it can be to communicate - for eg. all terrorists in a group can open a web based email account. They can make the password known to all between them. Then henceforth all they need to do is to write an email and save it as a draft instead of actually sending it. All others can then read this message and even save more drafts. No actual mails will be exchanged. Also how difficult it is to use strong encryption and send a mail on your own? Further, code language can be used. I can go on but i hope I have made the point. People who are ready to die will find a way to do things... All this drama under the pretext of security is far more likely to be used for completely different purposes. It is really unfortunate that most do not even realize the danger of such moves and think they are doing something very patriotic by supporting the government. Things are never as simple as they are made out to be in public announcements.

Regarding the link above: So what AirHELL is effectively saying is that things should revert back to what it was when the cartel had a free run (5 - 6 operators is what we had before the new entrants came in). I hope and pray this never happens. A huge and growing market like India should be able to support few more players. The bad ones should go out of business. But this will never happen unless the Indian consumer wakes up and becomes less tolerant of mediocrity. Don't know how true these numbers are; but if it is true, then this is indeed extremely sad. The Indian consumer has not shown maturity and willingness to change with time and instead have been waiting indefinitely for MNP, for years. The incumbents (esp. Airtel) seem to have calculated it well, and have delayed MNP foreseeing the Indian subscriber's lethargy to change and lackadaisical interest in quality and even price, to his own and national detriment.

As a hedge against future upward tariff revision, it is a good idea for pre-paid users to pick up plans that have lifetime tariff validity. Unfortunately, RCom has now terminated lifetime validity for all plans. AFAIK, only Docomo still has lifetime tariff validity of 1p/second.. Does anybody know of any other lifetime validity plans? Pre-paid plans should be like post-paid... unless customer changes, they should remain constant for lifetime. In this, post-paid has a distinct (and unfair) advantage. But I don't see tariff hikes in the near future at least... not with the mirage of MNP looking more real. Airtel is known to make rubbish statements which more often than not, do not hold water.

Thanks, but as I mentioned, I have already registered a complaint thru online chat. I guess I should wait for sometime before complaining thru other avenues.

Taking incoming on the biggies means you are filling their coffers (interconnect charge). I would like the operators I am happy with to make that profit.

Bigger, stronger and better??? Bigger maybe (depending on what parameter you are considering) but stronger and better in what way?? Both the biggies, Airtel and RCom (GSM) have horrible networks at least here. Even quality of RCDMA seems to have declined to some extent in some parts, from what I hear. BSNL network has always been bad. Its only the newbies that seem to have much better tariffs and also good voice clarity. Docomo has good voice clarity and recently I was surprised to find that even Uninor seems to have excellent voice clarity. Both these are easily on par with CDMA, in voice clarity, if not better. Aircel is also ok, though not quite as good as the above two. If the Indian consumer is not recognizing the difference, then it is indeed sad. I seriously feel consumers should support these newcomers, due to whom we have much cheaper tariffs and better networks. The incumbents have cartelled and ****ed our blood and taken customers for granted for long enough. I know that their coverage may not yet be as wide as the existing players, but just coverage is certainly not the only factor to be considered while choosing an operator. If coverage be the only factor to be considered, then we should all be using BSNL But how many of us are ready to even consider that?

Returned from a trip to Panchgini and Mahabeleshwar yesterday. Had RGSM, Docomo, Aircel and Idea between us. RGSM's coverage and voice clarity was absolutely the worst amongst them all. many large areas are simply not covered. As expected, Idea was the best, followed by Docomo and then Aircel. Docomo's data connection did let me down though, esp. en route from Pune to Panchgini. Most attempts to connect were unsuccessful. Basically, I guess it would not be improper to say that the operators performed as expected and similar to what they are in Poona. It is really surprising to see RGSM is far worse (wrt both coverage and voice clarity) than even Aircel, despite being the oldest amongst the new operators. Shame on RCom. They should just wind up their GSM business.

9 bucks/min?? I belive Docomo has a pack where tariffs to US, Canada, Singapore for 2p/sec. Can't recall if thats only to landlines or mobiles.Not sure if that is the cheapest in the market as of now.... but it probably is.

Awesome name. Thats the only way to be sure about anything...

I too feel Nations security comes first to anything. So i see no harm in the govt asking for monitoring the services. Now isn't that exactly what the govt. would luv to have us all believe? Congrats... you would be like the ideal citizen (according to them). The govt. is by far the biggest terrorist; albeit in disguise. But disguises work damn well in this world, it seems....

Very scary developments. At the pretext of so-called security all privacy of individuals is being thrown to the winds. What is worse is that very few seem to realize the repercussions of such developments.

Seems Idea is fast becoming a bad idea. Most amazing thing was they expected me to recharge with almost Rs. 400 for 6 months validity for my I-card Active plan... and that too when the plan had almost lost its relevance. In the current scenario paying so much for validity sounds like a cheap joke. Funniest thing is they reduced the STD tariff from Rs. 1.5 to 75p but kept the local call charges at Re. 1. Tata isn't the 1st to launch the "Ulta" plan. To rub salt on the wound, no special vouchers allowed.

Luckily, congestion on Idea is not that bad in Poona. The 900 MHz spectrum they operate on definitely has a part to play. But then the same can be said about other operators, including RCDMA. In-building coverage is really good. Surprisingly, even Docomo seems to have almost similar call quality (despite the drawback of operating at higher frequency). However, in-building coverage is nowhere comparable to Idea; nor is out of city coverage. But Docomo seems to be getting better. And I guess the same is true for Uninor. Lets see how long Idea can keep charging such premium tariffs without rapidly loosing customers to the competition. The only reason they can keep charging such high tariffs is because not enough customers seem to be ready to ditch them. If MNP somehow does arrive this year, I'd expect them to fall in line sooner rather than later.

Well, you can't call that "cheating". As long as they declare what they are charging, you can't call it cheating. Cheating is what companies like Airtel are veterans at - repeatedly activating packs without consent, making a chunk of your balance disappear plus crafty tariffs which is kinda like borderline cheating. I have experienced none of this with Idea Maharashtra. Yes, their tariffs are way high and GPRS is a rip-off, thats a given. But then if you don't like it, you can give them the boot. And thats what I have done. I gave up my 4 year old Idea number because of their totally uncompetitive tariffs, despite being a "fan" of Idea. Docomo is now my main number, and it saves me money; but I don't think any other network (GSM or CDMA) can be compared to Idea, at least in Maharashtra. Recently, a friend of mine gave up his Idea connection... and was really surprised to receive a cheque by courier for the deposits paid, within a month surrendering. In fact he didn't even recall that Idea owed him anything. Can you imagine this happening with say Airtel? I know cases where they haven't refunded deposits even after umpteen reminders, fights, legal threats and whatnot.

Why do you say not as evil as Idea? And according to you, why isn't Idea giving this offer in Mah, MP & CG? Because it is established in these circles and not in Delhi?

No good if it is just promo balance. If they send such offers by SMS (or however) they should clearly mention that it is just promo balance. Anyway, yesterday I recharged my RGSM after a long time (as I use it only for SMS now). Recharged for Rs. 100 and got Rs. 88 something as main balance and remaining as promo balance.

Beware dudes, Airtel's tactics do not stop at just increasing tariffs outright. Some other tactics are craftily designed tariffs (eg. charge higher for 1st call (and not for 1st minute!), outright cheating (activate services without request, balance deduction with no explanation, show higher than actual data usage, etc., etc). I won't be surprised if all this starts happening with RCom, now that the Airtel scum has infiltrated it. But no use cribbing. We have many other options now...

Giftmate has done it again! First I try to top-up my Giftmate a/c. Money gets deducted from my Bank a/c but does not appear in my Giftmate a/c. I call them, they say it will be refunded and ask me to carry out the transaction again. I try again and it is successful. Now I try to top-up my RGSM, and money gets deducted from my Giftmate a/c, I get transaction successful message from Giftmate, but my RGSM does not get recharged. I call them again and they take a complaint. And after the whole fiasco and spending additional money in calling them up, my mobile remains un-recharged. Thats it. I don't think I'll want to use Giftmate again. Maybe the problem is with the operator's end and the payment geteway and all, but I really don't have time to go thru all this. And one can't wait for 2 - 7 days as they advice. Offers and all will also be gone if the recharges are not done in time.

Can't speak about rest of Maharashtra yet, but its no good in Poona. Voice clarity is worse than any other operator. Even Aircel with 1 - 2 bars has better voice clarity than RGSM when in full range. It has been discussed in other threads.... And yes, I have noticed issues with texting between RGSM and RCDMA also.

Currently I"m using my RGSM only for SMS; thats why I want to recharge only for minimum required amount. I was hoping to use it for STD (1p/3min) but the voice clarity is usually so bad that I either have to disconnect and reconnect (sometimes helps) or have to call back using my Docomo. So I end up spending same/more. As of now my RGSM is useless for anything except cheap SMSing. So even Vodafone is offering hyper talk-time, but not RCom. Bad show! My Docomo is giving 1p/2s local calling for 45 days with full talk-time for Rs. 444.

^^^Thanks. Got a reply from them. RCom is really amazing. They say that Rs.100 will give full tt only on the following dates of August, 2010 - 1st, 12 to 15, 21 to 24. Promo tt validity - 7 days. 10 local SMS free. Now every time one has to recharge, one has to take time to find out and note all this. Talk about simplicity. RCom is truly becoming worse than Airtel (can it be otherwise?). There are some smaller recharges but the tt carries 3 - 15 days validity, so not mentioning these.

Anybody knows whats the current minimum amount for availing full talk-time (RGSM) in Maharashtra circle? Need to know the minimum amount as I'm now using my RGSM for SMS only.

I guess Tata Indicom would be the second operator to pull off this joke (STD cheaper than local). I'm sure the 1st is idea. My I-card Active plan's STD rate was reduced to 75 paise/min but local off-net (and on-net not in happy hours) call charges remained at Re. 1. Batch of jokers. I got rid of that plan 1.5 months back. Now on the verge of getting rid of the connection itself (because of the tariffs).

Best network? BSNL?? Not their mobile network surely? At least not here in Pune... I hope they go deeper and deeper in the red. In a way it will give me some satisfaction and may also force the govt. to make drastic changes in this rotten organization.

Don't know about Delhi, but RGSM has been good with texting here. Most/all SMSes seem to be delivered now. Ya, if coverage in particular area is very low and fluctuates to 1 - 0 bars, then message sending failed errors will be encountered, but not otherwise (earlier this used to happen even when signal was at max).