SexyGurl

My original tilt towards Tata was really based on the assumption that the handsets are of standard quality, and the prices of the hansets are standard market prices (no hidden mark-up for offering the free incoming). Looking at the prices and the handsets ... (which I came to know only too late) ... it seems to me that Tata in adding-in a charge for the incoming into the handset price. So, the "free incoming" thing is fake. If Tata is really serious it should be offering Rs. 2000/- handsets from LG (like reliance is currently offering) .... and all Nokia should be purchasable at fair market price. After all the analysis ... Tata still seems to be still some way off from Reliance. (And the bad thing is that they seem to resorting to "cheating" ... hidden costs and all)

Chinese handsets ! ... take your chances (...or wait patiently for reliance's next round of price revision)

Thats' bad ... It implies one needs to keep the incoming phone, and keep a Rs. 50/- voucher ready all the time .... so that in case a need for emergency outgoing call requirement.... u can recharge and make the call. I wish they had Rs. 10/- top up vouchers as well !

Oh really ! never knew. btw.. which two are chinese? I bet Indicom Ace is ! ? EDIT: Also, I think tata should anyone to allow anyone to buy any tata-enabled handset from the market (incl. nokia etc.) ... lest it sure give a feeling that it's a 1000 or 1500 bucks handset .... the remaining 1000 or 1500 bucks is the "charge" for the "free" incoming !

And my problem ... is somewhat different. If I spend Rs. 2500 on TATA, my monthly spend is about 2500/24 = about Rs. 100/- With reliance it's already Rs. 150/- per month. (So, means Rs. 3600 in 2 years). Purchase of talktime on either in future, would depend on my needs ... and though tata looks cheap now ... I believe that in the long run Tata and Reliance would come to the same thing. But all I am hesitant about is upfront money payment for TATA. Paying Rs. 100/- every month would have been differnt ... than 2500 upfront. I fancy someone to take my LG 5130 for free, but buy me a Tata set in return (for free to me).

And why do you agree with coai, sir? Why don't GSM operators also offer free incoming bundled with handsets ... no one's stopping them? I sure want to buy a TATA set .... and I don't ask you to stop paying MONTHLY RENTALS to GSM operators, if you want to. But why restrict my options? I have same views against COAI, because it opposed (and in collusion with Dayanidhi Maran) led to the end of UNLIMITED STD from Reliance. (hurting a lot of people). If you hear some of the not so well publicised views of coai -- it opposes LIVE videos on R-world .... saying DoT should restrict launch of any 3G service till all operators are equipped to launch it .. ensuring "fair" competition.

ok.. great. My doubts go further than that .... Can the Nokia handsets (listed among handsets on Tata Indicom site) be purchased with the Non-stip mobile offer? (These sets may not be exclusively for Non-stop offer)

Within the non-stop mobile offer .... tata seems to be providing free tata-2-tata, BUT only in few circles. What circles are these? Is Delhi included? I mean .. Tata-2-Tata free WITHOUT ANY RECHARGE (... not the 0123 plan) + the usual free incoming from ANY OPERATOR's PHONE. (i.e. both incoming and Tata-2-Tata free for all two years for 2500 bucks, one time payment)

And given his majesty Dayanidhi Maran at helm .... you can't be sure, that the govt. will also smile at this. Mr. Maran has proved himself quite capable of considering these things seriously (... especially, if he gets a brief case).

There press release states that Indicom Star is available on non-stop mobile offer.... thought the handset listing does not mention that. I'd trust the press release, more than the handset listinng ... .they probably forgot to update the pop-up for Indicom Star on the handset page.

Yeah .. that one's great ... but what's the price?

Utsav ..... you missed Indicom Star. It seemed the visibly most appealing model to me (though, it's also the costliest at 3999). The indicom site says that these 4 models are "exclusively" available with the non-stop mobile offer. But it's not clear, if the other models (eg. Nokia models) could also be bought with Non-stop mobile offer. They are silent on this ... which could mean: (1) Those models could be bought with the regular plans ... AS WELL AS non-stop mobile offer, OR (2) Those models could be bought ONLY with the regular plans. What is the truth?

I think TATA is adding a sufficiently high margin in the Handset price to mildly charge for the free incoming facility. The handsets under the Non-stop mobile scheme are slightly costly. eg. TATA Ace (Rs. 2499) looks like just a Rs. 2000/- rupee phone from reliance (so 500 rupees is hidden cost of incoming). Other handsets are very costly. : Samsung Neo, costing Rs. 2999 is comparable to Samsung Boss of reliance, which reliance sells for Rs. 2000/- The other handsets (eg. Indicom Stat) at 3999 is hell too costly compared to LG 5130 (available at 3800 from reliance). Even then, Tata cannot provide R-world type services on these handsets (so Indicom Star is of little use, even though, colored and data-enabled). ----------------------------------- I think this is a mixed offer .... not in the class of monsoon hungama. The hidden cost of incoming, is about 500 to 1000 in each hanset price. No wonder, not so much hulla-gulla in the market place for it.

180 ?? ONE HUNDRED EIGHTY RUPEES for incoming for 2 YEARS ?? This is crazy .... or maybe I misunderstood or you mistyped !

The big question is, what is the source of funds for Essar right now? They bought BPL .... now Max. What's up? Is Essar Steel doing too well .... with the high fortunes of the Steel Industry in general? Or what else? !! -- FinMin / SEBI would do well to try looking behind the veil.

I don't know I understood the OO concept or not ! I think I do .... how do I make sure, that I understand? Is there a test, for that? (I mean not a certificate test .... what should I be able to do, if I understand .... and what should be sufficient to prove that I don't understand it, really)

I like this approach, (or equivalently we could read the result into a String variable) ... and the cin input should also be read as a string. Comparison should on the basis of the length of the cin input. That way, user could input 0.33 or 0.333 or 0.33333333 and all the times get a match to the result computed by computer. I could have easily implemented this in VBA ... but am learning c++, do have to find out the syntax to implement String inputs, comparison etc. I am going nuts with operator overloading in C++. How hard do you experienced guys think is it, to learn the C++ STL. How long would it take an average guy to learn STL. Can you suggest a good STL tutorial from the web .... (not those childish C++ tutorials starting with hello world programs). A bit higher level than that.

I will NEVER again buy a second hand laptop .... and 20K is not cheap for a laptop. I bought one for 22K and the world knows that I have lost it. Buy Desktops ... or buy laptop for rs. 60K with warranty and all. (actually, buy a laptop, only if you can afford to buy the next laptop as well .... once the first one is broken down)

Though .. one thing can be said for Hutch subscribers (in Delhi, atlest) .... they attach a BIG "snob value" to using Hutch. I don't know the exact reason (... since the delivery is inferior to Reliance) .... but I guess these are the two reasons: 1. Hutch sells in Delhi becoz of the WAY-TOO-UPMARKET ADVERTISEMENT. - Hutch Ads do no feature Indians, in their Ads ... the models could more easily be associated with a European (maybe, that seeped down from the Orange brand in Europe). - Hutch Ads are designed to target / appeal to posh-South Delhi clientale (even though bulk of the buyers do not belong to that posh-group)... it very cleverly, creates an aspiration value in the minds of non-posh, non-South Delhi people (who aspire to be recognized with the posh group). 2. They keep the prices higher .... gives a person who can afford it, a feel that "I pay 1000-plus rental for my mobile. I am not in the group rickshaw-pullers who buy 150 rupee vouchers ... on dirt cheap handsets". Hutch Prices don't float in the light of the services offered ... atleast at the face of it (look at the clumsy gprs vis-a-vis r-world) .... but the PRICE itself "JUSTIFIES" that the service is of superior "STATUS". It's becomes "quite funny" (atleast from my experiences with HUTCH subscribers, in Delhi) .... as if, OWNING A RELIANCE, BY DEFAULT, MEANS YOU ARE A RICKSHAW-PULLER No wonder, many guys, in my office, are afraid to mimic me into buying a Reliance ... because giving out a 93-number will spoil their personality-image, when they give out the number to others. (eg. I know a guy, who doesn't want to put a 93-number on his Job Resume ... as it would look CHEAP. He's an MBA from a big school .... and naturally wants no remote association with a rickshaw puller). These kinda guys, keep having their tongues hanging out, while I browse R-world in front of them (off course, don't make it plainly open). Sometimes comment .... "This is nothing, compared to EDGE" ... even though, they themselved don't own EDGE-enabled handsets. LIFE IS FUNNY

GSM operators are in general costlier than reliance for LOW USAGE customers. eg. for postpaid .. Hutch, Airtel charge Rs. 50/- for CLIP, Reliance charges Rs. 25/- (assumption is that LOW USAGE customers do want to have CLIP ... which I think is true, in a lot of cases) R-world monthly membership is Rs. 25/-. Hutch used to charge Rs. 99/- for GPRS till 2 months back (and no per kilobit charge). Now it has reduced the monthly charge to Rs. 49/- but added a 10 paise per kilobit charge ... making it effectively costlier than the earlier 99/- per month itself. Even after paying a hell lot for GPRS, Hutch does not offer good content on GPRS (video is not possbile using GPRS technology, so no Aajtak, NDTV or Mukhvak) ... they just provide News, Horoscope and f*kking Rahul Dravid and Rahul Dravid and one more time Rahul Dravid. For videos like Aajtak, NDTV, CNBC ... one has to buy an EDGE-enabled handset .... The cost of that set, simply ruled out the option of even considering EDGE@Hutch. It used to be a Rs. 8,000 to 10,000 .... don't know how much the cheapest EDGE handset is now (I'll be very much surprised, if it is available at less than 6000/-) .... LG5130 sells at 3800/- and with video streaming capability is very very affordable, compared to any comparable GSM set. -- Incidentally, LG 5130 has become a very good option, since R-world went paid ... because they have recently launched very very lucrative videos ... Amitabh Special, Kishore Kumar songs, Lata Mangeshkar Collection, Bollywood Comedy Scenes. (Though, I find Rs. 7/- per video slightly costly ... I couldn't resist buying Kajra-re video). Not sure, but from what I hear around .... Hutch's rates for GPRS/EDGE services are many times like Rs. 20/- per download ... or EVEN Rs. 50 PER DOWNLOAD (YESSS-- FIFTY RUPEES PER DOWNLOAD) .. CRAAAZZZY. For me, I don't even bother to analyze Hutch tariffs and rates .... there was hardy a need to waste time and effort comparing Hutch and Reliance.

2499 sounds quite good (though, i was hoping for a Rs. 2000 handset ... like Reliance LG**** whatever number, I mean the lowest reliance set). But I can't help commenting .... that Reliance's R-world is getting sweeter and sweeter, by every day. And TATA will take ages to think of matching R-world. And probably the 2499 set, is not Java or BREW enabled, so won't be able to support Data Applications. Silly me ... first you don't want to pay any money .... and then you want to have R-world type thing too

160 GB !!!! my goodness. I feel like a school boy. I think it will be very very profitable to get in email touch with Ashoksoft atleast ... I hope, you have tons of material related to my very CHOOSY TASTES. Though, offcourse, I don't want to spoil the parliamentary decorum of rimweb, by discussing things here. I'm in the middle of some hectic career related activity ... so don't want to do porn now .... but willl surely try get in touch with you for some nice things from that 160 GB mountain range ! EDIT: My f*kking company is smart enough to block ICEMAN'S site via the firewall. So, won't be able to use the useful link. Anyway, if anyone can suggest: which Email service provider offers maximum attachment size, I'll be grateful (Is there anyone going above 10 MB per email limit?)

I'm myself surprised ..... there's no hullaballo ... so shouting on the streets. Are we talking of something which doesn't exist??. I swear I saw that as in Hindustan Times. I don't know, why we don't have long news items on the net. you could be right ashok .... and I better get my spectacles cleaned.

NEW DELHI: Mukesh Ambani’s retail blueprint is virtually ready. The broad structure includes dividing the country into 21 zones, each headed by a CEO. A revenue target of Rs 90,000 crore will be set by the end of the fifth year. The elder Ambani finally cleared the retail blueprint last month. According to sources, the company is on a major hiring spree for the project being lead by ex-Infocomm honcho and Ambani confidante, Manoj Modi. Reliance Industries’ retail model — which would include hyper and super markets apart from large malls — is eyeing revenues of close to Rs 90,000 crore by the end of the fifth year. Each zonal CEO will be given a target of Rs 4,000 crore. RIL, which has been refusing to comment on the venture, could not be reached despite attempts by ET. As per the initial plan, the retail business would start with 20 A-class cities and later be expanded to 100 destinations. Each of the larger retail centres, sources say, would be spread over 100 acres and would house entertainment facilities, a small hospital complex, eateries and a big mall. RIL is believed to have set aside an investment of Rs 30,000 crore over the next five years and that could allow it to emerge as the largest player in this sector. During the past six months, RIL has approached many state governments for necessary clearances and acquisition of land. Full Article at this url: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1259134.cms

I did that to my dear LG 5130 !!! ... and got the scare of my life. You shouldn't be revealing places where atomic bombs are hidden ... and then put a caution ... GO HAVE A LOOK AT THE BOMB, AT YOUR OWN RISK. Who won't ?? --- and if the bomb explodes, who is to blame ??