Ramchi

Unlike Western doctors who are afraid to touch Brown patients, this team of medical professionals (nurses, assitence & doctor ofcourse) have done a greatest job in their life time, did not charge millions!!! They take the success in their stride. No fan fare etc..

It depends on the bandwidth in whic you use your voice chat and the type of equipment being used on the otherend etc...If the receiving end is using Speaker and has lots of noise parameters, then you may experience voice cuts. But if you use Bluetooth headset and the receiving party is also using headset, you can avoid unnecessary voice distortions and background noise. This VOIP over Skype or MSN may not be perfect but it serves the purpose. Dont use Skype or MSN standard Voice Chat for your business needs. For this go for paid services offered by Fring or Skype which should provide you a better solution where you can directly call overseas telephone numbers.

Random, Me too agree with you on RIM as a service provider. There is nothing phenominal about their services either affordability or high performance. They entered the mobile market with a big bang, no doubt. But after that they have become another Hutch, Airtel, BPL, Vodafone et al....thats it. I dont see any BIG difference between any of these service providers apart from GSM Vs CDMA standards. Right now, people are thinking NOT twice but many times before even consider Reliance as their service provider.

No information on which circles are going to be covered, when is it going to start etc... Tarrif details at this point makes no sense as Reliance can always slash prices by attaching rediculuous conditions. Without knowing the details of when this Reliance GSM going to be rolled out, we can only reserve our comments.

Whichever Mobile phone you choose, ensure that Fring or SIP works without any problems. You go for mobile phone with more memory (like P1i which has 128 MB or RAM) and OS which is stable (Symbian OS - UIQ 3.0), if you are particular about VoIP voice chating. I do have Nokia E61 which has WiFi and also has similar capabilities; this phone works fine but lots of hanging. You may go for E61i which has Camera capabilities as well. I feel E61i will be a better option in terms of value for money. But stability may be an issue with this phone (Not sure about E61i, though). BB generally can be avoided for lack of support and highly priced handsets. HTC, I-Mate, HP, Palm - No proper support available in India. You may need to spend lots of time and effort, may be lots of money for accessories as well. Motorola, Samsung - I have not owned any Wifi from these brands.

I use P1i which has Wifi and has SIP. I installed Fring (freeware) which connects to your MSN, Skype, Google Talk. I used to connect thri wifi for Voip Voice chatting. If you have 256 Kbps connection at home, you can easily have conversation with overseas friends & family members without having to pay anything additional thru your mobile phone. If you have Bluetooth headset you can talk without holding the phone!!! You dont need a computer but you need a Wireless Router and Broadband connection. It directly connects to MSN, Google & Skype contacts. Since P1i has QWERTY keyboard, I can also chat. You even get Incoming Call Dial Tone using this Fring software. This can be downloaded from the net for free. Also, you can use this to talk to domestic/overseas telephone but this is a paid service at very cheap rates. Dont go for wierd WiFi phones. Go for either Nokia or Sony Ericsson. Never try Blackberries!!!

Will it be rolled out in Chennai in the near future? If so, from when onwards? I am tired of Vodafone-Hutch-blabla. Airtel is very expensive in Chennai for Data/Call plans. I know Reliance is not the best when it comes to Prepaid but I am willing to sing up for Postpaid if they have good plans.

Normally, Reliance employ some school kids or possible drop outs. Asking them for latest technologies and detailed information is like asking for moon. They come to Reliance Web World, have fun with their lady staffs who wear some fancy colored clothings and possibly date withsome women coming to suf Web!!!! For them customers are like idiots who are spoiling their party!

Everything at the superficial levels - No ground level changes yet. There will be someone who will engage in law suits, some regulatory authority goes on hybernation for few years etc....These operator babus like Reliance, Tata, Airtel & Hutch aka Vodafone happily dishes out legacy technology at premium price. When it comes to affordability, none of these standards would get node from average Indian customers.

In Kerala Airtel gives unlimited GPRS @ Rs 250 PM or Rs 1500 per annum! All other providers are behind Airtel - Kerala in terms of competitive tarrif. Only BSNL is providing such GPRS tarrif in TN. Vodafone or Hutch is an expensive luxury inspite of the fact their service is also equally poor. In TN Airtel simply loots by overcharging customers. Reliance non-existent in Souther parts of the country because of their poor customer services.

If Reliance focuses on GSM than CDMA let us not hope Reliance lovers come out here and change their stand against CDMA standards which they have been saying is superior to GSM!!!

What about postpiad? Any such plans or only useless & expensive GPRS plans? In TN & Chennai circle operators are cheating Tamil Nadu people with very high Broadband tarrifs! Already BSNL is giving unlimited GPRS for Rs 199 for postpaid - no provider could match that deal till today.

Just like running in treadmill! You would have consumed time, sweated out but remained in the same place.

Connectivity everywhere - Yes Affordability for everyone - ???? All mobile networks and communication networks making life difficult in India. These guys are forming cartel and forcing us to go back to 80s where only rich and powerful enjoyed fruits of technology while rest was forced to contend with $hit. Indian operators never liked competition, especially, with foreign players who may provide quality services while Indian players only pretend like premium players by charging more but service quality & affordability touching nadir.

What is the speed of these data cards? Hope these unlimited plans are not at depleted speeds!

BB 8830 is totally useless after seeing its predecessor model 8800 it is apparent that BB handsets begining to loose charm. I would prefer to go for iPhone or other fancy phones in the market (which are 30%-40# cheaper than BB 8830/8800). All Blackberry connect, mobile office plans are very expensive for normal users (which costs beyond Rs 1000 plus rental for voice plans). MHO - Not worth it.

As usual all babus stuff without anything for the end customer. These talks have been going thru for centuries without yielding anything. With elections round the corner it would be difficult for government to announce spectrum policies and quicker rollout of 3G. Reliance getting GSM means one thing but end customer still ****ing his thumb forever.

Great innovation! Goole is the way to go. Irrespective of how it is used, still this is a good one.

Mobile phones have been in vogue only for the past 10 years or so, maximum. Only recently (5 + years) it has been heavily used in developing countries. So its negative effects will not come out quickly as many would like to think. It is very difficult to concede that there is nothing in these reseraches.So many radiating towers and toxic mobile phones etc...may not be totally harmless!

Indian mobile operators like Reliance, TATAs, Bharthi, BSNL etc….do not want 3G at all….If the 3G license is given to outsiders then they will be forced to upgrade their networks at a very high cost which they don’t like it. By playing it between inefficient TRAI & corrupt Dot babus they continue to exploit Indian market by denying the best for Indian consumers. Vodafone will be more than happy to meet their quarterly targets with statuesque mode. We people talk about 3G, 4G, WiMax only in theory!!! As far as India is concerned with these legacy players like TATAs, Reliance and Mittals, nothing useful is going to happen. We may never get 3G instead wait for another 20 years to get some upgrade to new generation networks!!!!!

SMS tariffs have been increased in the recent past. So, decline in usage is obvious. Do not try to change the perception by wrongly attributing the decline to non-existing decrease of Voice tariffs!! As far as I know, Mobile rates have been increasing in the past 6 months or so. So the conclusion of users prefer to talk instead of sending text due to cost reason is total nonsense. Few people simply have stopped sending text messages. That’s it. It is not as though calling a person is cheaper that’s why they stopped sending SMS messages!! I know, Hutch (Vodafone now) in Chennai circle offered 100 SMS free everyday which could have saved many - lots of money but as soon as they get more customers they dropped this plan even for existing users. Suddenly, they expect everyone to pay Rs 1 for each SMS message. Even if there is a decline in sending SMS messages, revenue coming out of SMSs would be much higher than previous quarters. They make sending SMSs as habit by giving it for free only to pull the plug later making you to pay for it every time you send. Even if there is a decline of 10% usage they will 90% more revenue than when they offered it for free. Foolish customers end up paying more for sending SMSs as well as for voice!

The OS related information may be useful for the developers than Mobile buyers. Mobile users do not care if this is Symbian or Blackberry. If you want to use it as a Smart phone with lots of features then you may need to worry about OS and other stuffs. CDMA Vs GSM should not worry the end users; since the technical limitations does not allow users to switch between CDMA and GSM, it has become a pain to understand what exactly different standards mean. It is useful to be aware of all these information but a typical Indian customer buys phones which are less than INR 4K-6K.

In the http://www.mobile-review.com/index-en.shtml they have teared iPhone into pieces with their reviews. They have literally made iPhone look like a expensive toy not worth for the money or hype it has created. Infact, this website was blocked by Apple "fan-boys" clubs thru DDOS attack on this website. The site was unusable for a period of 15 days due to this reason. Basically, iPhone lovers are like Reliance shareholders. They praise Apple products even if it does not live up the expectations; just to create hype in the market and keep their investments safe!!! Having said that, I feel iPhone is a revolutionary device in terms of look, features though I did not get a chance to look at it. Mobile-Review clearly highlights many drawbacks of Applie iPhone by comparing them with Nokia products. People would be better-off who indulge in wait and watch game!

I have seen iPhone selling @Rs 60,000 in Rediff Shopping mall!!!! Not worth that much. Better go for Vertu!!!!!

CDMA phones are locked to one particular provider irrespective of its features. GSM phones with 3G (EDGE), WiFi, Bluetooth, media capabilities, touch screen, qwerty keyboard etc...would clearly outdo CDMA handsets. Anyway, CDMA and GSM technologies are converging oneway or the other. In few years from now, the differences would be very thin in terms of capabilities (3Mpbs etc...). As far as choosing between BB, P1i, P990i or Motorola handsets, P1i winds handsdown in all aspects except for EDGE. Buying Blackberry is like paying Rs 10 Lakhs for Hindustan-Ambasador Car. Though BB is a decent handset it does not offer value for money. It must cost 50% of its present value for any one even to think about buying.