starnet

Is there any difference in the speed with both modems? Which one is working better.

Aircel has unleashed a new price war. Good for the customers.

when the Reliance GSM SIMs first because available in Delhi, they were selling in black. Now the stores are giving away same SIMs for free and there are no takers for them. When people are not willing to take something that is being given to them for free, you know the reason why.

I seriously believe that Reliance should shut down its GSM network for a while and resolve the technical problems and then restart the service. If they continue with this half-hearted attempt then it will damage their reputation forever. Or maybe the hardware used by reliance to build its network is cheap chinese crap made by ZTE etc. and it can't be fixed to provide quality service.

A lot of people here have concerns about government stopping this EVDO service. We must not forget that our netas (read chors, gundas and murderers) are busy in preparing for upcoming elections. So they may not have time for trivial stuff like EVDO and internet.

In Delhi, I have following problems: 1. Have to try for at least 10 times for sending a SMS even to a Reliance CDMA number in Delhi. 2. Impossible to call any number between 5:00 PM to 7:00PM, when I am in Connaught place area. "All routes are busy...." 3. GPRS doesn't work on a Nokia N95 8GB set. On same handset Airtel GPRS is working without any problem since forever. 4. Customer support number is always busy, even at 1:00 AM in the middle of the night. 5. All these problems have existed since day 1 of launch in Delhi and I have not seen any improvement in last over 1 month. So, I believe these problems will stay with RGSM network forever. Forget the talk about RGSM competing with Airtels of the world. 2G GSM network technology is at least 15 years old. There is no rocket science involved in building a 2G network now a days. How a company like Reliance could have screwed the rollout of the network is beyond my understanding. All in all I believe I wasted money by buying Reliance GSM SIMs. Reliance GSM su*ks.

Read the fine print at the bottom again because as always devil is in the details: Unlimited usage plan will have a fair usage policy of 10GB/month I still believe that night unlimited also has a limit of 10GB/month.

How many residential/retail customers in USA are using their internet connections for video conferencing? I bet not many, even among those who are having FIOS connections. From what I have read, I believe pings to servers based in USA for people using on EVDO Rev A service from Reliance in Delhi will be around 500ms and those who are using BSNL or Tata Indicom's EVDO Rev0 service will be about 600ms. Pings to servers in USA from my PC on an Airtel ADSL connection in Delhi are around 320ms as of now. I agree these pings are on higher side for customers needing connections for gaming and even decent quality VOIP. But if the pricing is right, many will still buy/use EVDO because it is anytime better than dial-up. In fact anything is better than dial-up and the present CDMA 2000 1x service.

I believe that GSM data will compete directly with 3G CDMA (EVDO) for customers who want internet access on their computers without using ADSL wired lines. There will be huge market for these 3G USB modem dongles (both CDMA EVDO as well as 3g GSM), but for that to happen, pricing of both the USB modems as well as the cost of usage has to come down. Prepaid data plans have to become more widely available. For some reason people in our country trust prepaid plans more than postpaid plans. The market for mobile data is set to change drastically in next 1-2 years. In all this where the wimax will settle is still not known.

You guys are missing the point. "Unlimited" means a limit of 10GB only. Once you download more than 10GB, you will have to pay Rs. 2 per MB for download. So, if you download 20GB even during night in a month, you will get a bill of about Rs. 21000 plus service tax.

What about after 90 days. They will start deducting subscription charges for caller tune? or honestly deactivate it? Given the track record of reliance, you can be sure that customers will be shafted at some point of time. better be safe and get it deactivated ASAP. BTW, what is the number to send a SMS and what to include in the SMS? I too will have to deactivate this caller tune.

With the pricing of EVDO as high as it is now, RCOM will take about 25 years to sell that many modems.

There is no EVDO service from MTNL as of now and there is no news in the media about the same.

Some 1.5 months after they started selling SIMs here in Delhi, I still can't do basic things such as sending a SMS from reliance GSM SIM. Last SMS I sent from my Reliance GSM SIM took about 10 attempts. With such a crappy service quality why will anyone want to take a Reliance GSM SIM even for free? In fact they should pay customers for tolerating their their incompetence.

Coverage map is showing that there is no network in Delhi as of now. Anyway plans are really bad. Screw Reliance.

Do you seriously think that all the people you wrote to give a damn about you or your village? These people are all busy looting India and hence may not be able to help you. Good luck to you because you are going to need it. Sorry if I sound too rude. Have you looked at the possibility of having a satellite internet connection? Way back in 2004 I saw some schools in remote villages of U.P. using a VSAT internet connection. It was not a broadband connection. It was a 64 kbps only connection. HCL Comnet is one such provider. Following is their URL: http://www.hclcomnet.co.in/satcom.asp You can also contact Bharti Airtel for a quote. I think thet also provide that service. This is the only solution for remote areas for now and I suspect you will find the cost is too high for your venture.

I'm paying Rs. 2222 plus service tax for an Airtel 1 mbps unlimited ADSL connection in my office. Now Airtel has imposed a 100GB download limit on that "unlimited" plan under their FUP rules. More download will be at reduced speed. So, Rs. 1930 (inclusive of service tax) is a good price assuming that Reliance EVDO will have 2 mbps download speed at least. May be this plan from Reliance can force Airtel to lower the pricing on its plans or double the download speed for the same price.

Have you seen the demo or tried the service yourself?

This is the lowest price in the market and a potential game changer subjected to 3 conditions: 1. Service is reliable and not a joke like the EVDO service provided by BSNL. This is easy to do for reliance given that EVDO is a proven technology and is already being used in the USA at large scale. 2. Connection should be real unlimited and should not have limits such as the FUP rules of Airtel. 3. Pings should not be very high as they are in case of Netconnect right now. I see pings of 700ms to servers in USA on Netconnect and pings to USA based servers are well over 1 second in case of Tata indicom plug2surf. Basically we are talking about a potential 3.1 mbps unlimited connection for about Rs. 1930 per month (inclusive of service tax). If the service is of good quality then it will start much needed price wars in the broadband market in India.

Have you looked into buying GSM/HSDPA USB modems and selling them here? May be you can import cards similar to those that are used by AT&T 3G customers in the USA and sell them here after unlocking. We can use those modems with GPRS/EDGE untill 3G is widely available here in India. Right now GPRS/EDGE modems that are available for Rs. 2400 or more are too costly for the value that they provide because those cards will become obsolete in around a year or so from today.

Is this info available anywhere on the site of RCOM? or is this info available with dealers of reliance only? Any more details on pricing like monthly fees for postpaid plans and cost of download on prepaid? Can we buy a cheaper modem/card from someone like Sadik and put a SIM from GSK in that modem? Thanks in advance for the reply.

It has been reported that service will be launched in 35 cities to start with, therefore people in big cities at least should wait for a while before spending money on modems. I think existing modems that Reliance is providing to netconnect users now a days can not be used with EVDO service.

I have not tried Tata Wimax and I will not use another product of Tata, even if they provide that to me for free. I had a Tata wireline broadband. Connection was never up for more that 3 days in a week and speed was inconsistent when it was up. Their customer support is worse than even the sarkari MTNL. I have Tata Indicom plug2surf and connection speed is never more than 40Kbps. I have tried to use the damn thing at around 10 different locations in Delhi and never managed to get better speeds. Ping to servers in USA is always above 900ms. I'm getting around 90kbps on Reliance netconnect both in my office and in home. An employee in my company bought a Tata Indicom mobile. Voice quality is really bad despite the full signal strength on the screen. He was using a huawei set in the starting and is now using Samsung handset. Looks like network is too congested. So I have plenty of experience with Tata and I believe Tata group companies are the worst service providers in Indian telecom market.

N95 8GB is good.

That is most likely a problem related to Tata. Because: I think, Tata = Bad quality in everything. Their ADSL service (that they bought from Dishnet DSL) ****s big time. Their CDMA 2000 1X USB modem service (plug2surf) ****s because of slow speeds. Voice quality on their mobile network is the worst among all operators in our country. So, I am not surprised to learn that Tata EVDO service also ****s.