raccoon

Truth is that we now have 1.74 million new certified su*kers... Superior and affordable telephony by Reliance..........

How exactly do u define "low-end" handsets? Low end should mean basic handsets with minimal features like Calling, SMSing, reminders, alarm, etc. Upper-end means phones with many more frills like camera, BT, IR, etc, etc. Low end sets are generally better with voice clarity and batt life (monochrome screen, smaller, less power hungry CSTN screens, etc)! Normally, they should develop fewer problems too.. since there is less to go wrong with!! What you mean are "low-quality" sets like the Classics, etc...

I'm not sure thats true. I'v heard from different users that xyz operator was workign while all others were kaput! What I feel is that networks of different operators were working in different parts of Bombay... It seems however that Hutch and Airtel were the worst hit, while BPL, Reliance, MTNL were working in different parts...

As long as you guys subscribe to his services, you are contributing his dream...

Idea charges Rs. 5 a day for unlimited WAP (Mah & Goa). That is Rs. 150 a month. 500 /month is ridiculous! I would give up WAP usage altogether, If I had to pay that much!!! It seems RCom is trying to act holy - 1st charging exhorbitantly without even informing its customers, and then trying to act holy by waiving off the charges! Perhaps it they are trying to create psychological goodwill from such acts... And as Honest very rightly said, their "coming soon" depends entirely on how RCom defines "soon"...

Its amazing that fire in just ONE tower in Bombay can cause this mind of disruption! Its gotta be something more serious than that!! Forget about this kind of back-up, I'v even noticed that sometimes my Airtel signal has vanished when there is a power outage!!! They dont even have proper power back up for some of their towers... can you beat that??? Never experienced this kind of thing with the 3 other operators I'v used - Idea, Reliance & BSNL. Airtel is a class apart!

Am not able to make any outgoing calls or SMSes since last night....!!!

The Reliance you are talking about is not the Reliance of today. Dont get fooled by names and labels!

Ya... thats why I said - for practical all practical purposes, their towers are on fire everywhere... After experiencing their horrid network, I hope they all go up in flames... POOF~!!!

Its not going to get popular unless tariffs come down significantly. And with operators like RIM... fat chance!

Well, Im in Pune... and I'v not been able to send SMS since late evening. Attempt to call gives the msg Network Busy. Are all their towers in Poona also on fire??? Airtel has a horrid network here...

Thanks, but now my Moto GSM on Idea works only with Opera Mini. The inbuilt browser wont work if I set set the Internet Web session for Internet as default. But Opera works with this setting... Any ideas?

I dont think so? U should be able to see any WAP site! However, it seems Opera Mini does not seem to work on WAP. Your phone needs to be able to access the internet for it to work. At lest thats been my experience while getting Opera Mini to work on my GSM Motorola phone. So keep that in mind if you want to use Opera Mini. And Opera Mini will save lotta money too, as it reduces the data transfer to your device.

Well, your wiser friend did try to contact customer care at 4444... but getting thru to Idea customer care executive is akin to winning a lottery... so he gave up. He did visit Idea's portal too... but I guess he checked the section for Mah & Goa... and could find no such info there... Its always a good idea to mention your circle dude!

Dude, these days, phones from even the biggies like Nokia, etc are made in China! Perhaps you mean the lesser known ones (like Classics, for eg.). As long as they have GPRS/EDGE, and a WAP browser, you should be able to use them... but then the quality of such handsets is suspect. If you are going to use the ph mainly for surfing, then a big screen and a good keypad would be VERY useful. And of course a good battery... as surfing on ph is battery intensive. Also, if your ph and operator support EDGE, your surfing will be faster. You can see Idea's GPRS plans here. Dunno about Airtel/Voda... check out their websites (which may or may not have the current info)... or see if someone here knows... But please beware of Airtel... at least in Poona (and i believe in Bombay too), the network is terrible for voice calls. GPRS/EDGE is supposed to be good though.

I dont see this being displayed anywhere on the Idea website? Whats the source? If its true, then its really sad... and funny... there are still hoardings on the roads about Idea reducing their STD rates to 1.3 ...and I remeber a recorded message about the same just a couple days ago!!

Introductionary offer @ Re. 1/10 KB guys!!! Enjoy at the cheap rate of only Re. 1/10 KB without fretting too much, while it lasts... they will soon increase it to mebbe Rs. 100/10 KB ....hehehehe!

Very strange... the number is MORE important than the operator/service/tariffs/etc ??? ???? ??? I for one wouldnt take BSNL even if they give me their best vanity number for free...

Dudes, it seems you have very high hopes from these complaints and petitions… Regarding my last post, I called up the Dept. of Telecom, Public Grievance cell yesterday. I asked to speak to the Director. Not sure if they connected me to him... but this is what transpired (translated) - The guy could not speak English… but was quite “helpful”. I told him, I 1st registered my complaint in March (with periodic reminders and also phone calls) … its been more than 3 months, and absolutely no action or response from his department. He said – “You have absolutely no idea how many complaints we receive everyday. We are more fed up then you are! We can just forward your complaints to the Appellate authority of the respective telco. Then its upto them to act on the complaints”. I said, if that’s all you do, then isn’t your dept. just doing a post-man’s job? He said that’s all they can do, and if I want some concrete action, then I should take my case to a Consumer Court. Furthermore, he offered to give me the postal address/email/fax details of the Appellate Authority. I said it will be absolutely useless, as I have already tried to contact them. They refuse to even acknowledge the problem… leave alone act on it! He pleaded his inability to do anything more. Further, he said – “If you don’t want such problems please subscribe only to the services of govt. telcos like BSNL/MTNL. And before you say anything, we very well know that their networks are not upto par with the pvt. Telcos. But that’s just how it is. Please take your case to a Consumer Court”. So that’s how it is guys… RCom is not remotely concerened about our ranting and fuming here! They are busy making huge profits anyway. The only concrete thing you can do is to not subscribe to their services OR take them to a Consumer Court, if you have the time. But I think RCom is free to decide its tariffs. Its upto the customer not to opt for their services. Probably the only thing you can use against them is the fact that they haven’t informed you about the price hike. But to prove that, you would need to wait for the inflated bill.

This DOT pgcell seems to be a sham! I'v been sending them complaints since March... and absolutlely no action is taken by them. The complaint is against Airtell, who have set their billing system clock almost half hour behind time... so that calls made in the 1st half hr or so in the Friendz plan are billed at the peak hr rate instead of the Happy Hour rate. Broad daylight swindling by Airtel.... And the Customer Service supervisor actually asked me to set my watch according to Airtel's time, to solve the problem!!! Has anybody here seen any results after complaining to the DOT pgcell?

11 paise per SMS is not useful???

Why do you guys put up with all this?? I just activated GPRS on my Idea day before yesterday... and 1st time used GPRS/WAP no my mobile. Idea charges me 2 paise/KB in zero rental plan or 1 paise/KB [Re. 1 deducted per day] (just changed my plan to this from the above plan) or Unlimited WAP at Rs. 5 per day or Unlimited internet and WAP at Rs. 15 per day. Just installed Opera Mini... and managed to get it to work (after a lot of tinkering)... it rocks!

Well, none of the pvt. shops would be able to sell them at those rates of the WebWorlds and Express outlets sell them at the official price of Rs. 15 !!! So the blame goes right back to RCom!

Zone Alarm is another great example of bloatware...