Ramchi

Looks like we as consumers [pay for our services] fight between ourselves unnecessarily. Why should we support or oppose any particular operator? We must narrate our experience as it is. If we ourselves console on behalf of Reliance or Airte or Hutch saying that all are not good in Customer Service then no one is there to help us, the consumers. We as customers must demand and protest by quitting the service. This is the only language which providers will understand. We as mobile customers must demand highest quality and at affordable price. If we dilute our expectations by 25% then the providers will meet our expectations only by 30-40%.

For small kids getting harassed in the schools are matter of life and death. They lose confidence, they develop inferiority complex and eventually their lives become destroyed just because some irresponsible ad agency picked up some name. We as adults can manage such insults. Look at discussion forums when some one abuses other, the abused one gets back with vulgar words. Since adults know how to react, they do so; but for kids they do not even know how to properly retaliate or handle such situations? If such abuses continue for days or months, it will definitely impact his moral for sure. Good that this kid is taking up this issue with the court; only problem is the compensation which seems to be low!

This morning it allowed me to activate my account with Rs 200 paper recharge. This is completely violating the principles of Prepaid concept. How can Airtel force me to recharge only particular value [higher value in this case]? How the customer is expected to understand such nitty-gritties of their billing system? especially their prepaid customers who want simple service from Airtel and infact customers are paying for their services in advance unlike postpaid.

Dear Friends, My horrible experience with India One plan continues…. Initially, I tried this One India prepaid plan with Reliance which turned out to be a nightmare. Later I decided to quit Reliance and to try with Airtel. The reasons for me to quit Reliance is discussed in detail under the thread: Reliance One India is a fraud. I have been with Airtel prepaid for the past 2 years or so. I never encountered any major problems either related to billing or service or network coverage. After my bad experience with Reliance I thought of attempting this One India plan with Airtel so I recharged my existing Prepaid account with Rs 1111 easy recharge for which I received Rs 750 worth of talk time @ Rs 1.00 Per Minute. This plan worked fine and I never got charged more than Rs 1.00 Per minute for all my out going calls. Since the validity is only for 30 days I went to recharge my account with Rs 899 easy-recharge. I was told that Rs 899 is again another One India plan where we can make Rs 550 worth of calls @ Rs 1.00 Per minute across the country (as against, Rs 750 in the Rs 1111 One India plan) but there is no free SMS service. This is again valid for 30 days. So, I was trying to recharge my account with Rs 899 easy recharge but to my surprise it is refused to recharge. The guy in the shop was trying to activate it as many times but I get a message saying the recharge attempt was unsuccessful. I was trying to recharge my account one day after the expiry date. I was wondering this may be the reason why it is not allowing me to recharge. But I still have Rs 540 worth of balance left in my account. I was trying to activate my account by buying One Day [Rs 60] paper recharge, still I could not activate. I tried with Rs 200 paper recharge again it did not allow me to complete the transaction. Worst part is, my account is disabled and when I tried to reach the customer service representative, automated voice says I must have an active account to talk to a representative but when I tried to activate it is not allowing me to do so. So I was forced to make a paid call to the Airtel Customer Care and when I talked to them I found out this: When I sign up with India One plan under Rs 1111 plan, I can only recharge with Rs 1111 next time. Otherwise, I need to wait for 2 complete days [which in other words I can use my Rs 32K worth handset only as a paperweight] after the expiry date so that my plan will be reverted back to the original plan[which was there before I recharged my account with India One card] call rates. I need to check tomorrow on this by trying to activate my Rs 200 paper recharge. I think, all providers are working over time to make this One India plan as a failure. Our Communication minister must ban these service providers like Ambani and Mittal cheats.

So these adding 10 million customers per year and all like, recycling same customers/handsets? They can cheat customers and pretend like running but it is like running in the treadmill where you will spend all your energy but you will remain in the same place whereas your competitors would have gone light-years ahead. This is what happened with TATAs and Two Wheeler industries. No one trusts and believes Indian made products.

Many people effectively use missed calls. Most of the times these missed calls are done with purpose and it is acknowleged positively by the other side. I do not agree that Indian Call rates are the cheapest in the world and all. In US you can use your mobile phones @ $50 Per Month with which you can call 3000 any time minutes, night & weekends are free [incoming and outgoing] plus free incoming. For an average American[which is close to $40K] $50 per month is about 1/70 - 1/80 of their monthly disposable income. I do not see such plans exist in India except may for Reliance-Reliance, Tata-Tata local etc... In US providers serve almost 10 times the volume than Indian providers. They are able to generate profit, satisfy customer and technologically superior.

Very cool looking with great features. May take few light years before Indian consumers can see latest technologies at affordable price ranges. Reliance seems to be very happy in what it is doing and I really doubt whether they would press hard for new devices like this. You may able to run-around get this handset work for Reliance but my $1 advice is change your country if you really want to use this phone!

It is not like that. If you are Prepaid customer then you will be treated like a begger. Whenenver you make calls to CC they put your request in the queue of 1 Million issues. You all know, Reliance adding 1 million customers a month facing 10 million problems handling customers. For them existing Prepaid customers will come as the last priority but you will eventually get some kind of 'useless' responses by which time you would have already decided to quit Reliance, like me. I would not say the same on Postpaid. I referred one of my disputes to the Chairman and it was hilarious to see Chairman of a multi-billion dollar company is directly involved in giving Rs 27 worth of credit to their customers. No wonder American/Foreign citizens are against our Call Center representatives. Recently, I have closed one of my overseas a/c since they started charging me for not maintaining minimum balance. When I told this to the Customer Care representative, he immediately waived me those fees. In US CC representatives have discretionary power to please customers. Here in India, for giving Rs 27 worth of credit (though actually they wronged me close to Rs 400) Chairman of Reliance needs to get involved. Pathetic! They do not value their time and their customers.

RIM has removed the Messaging from PC feature in their 6255. Whereas I was able to send and receive messages in my Nokia N90 thru GSM providers very easily. For those people using unlimited SMS packages may find this facility very useful; which for some reason is denied for Nokia 6255 handset owners.

I purchased Nokia 6255 on August'15,2005. I have been using this phone with utmost care. I always keep my phones within the leather pouch. I never abuse the phone. After few months of usage its middle area joining two sides of the clam is developing crack. I have not dropped the phone nor hit with some hard materials for sure. If so, there will be a physical damage. There is a series of two hair-line cracks developing which could not withstand even normal usage. If this crack develops further my phone will be hanging on one side. My question is whether Nokia will replace this phone with new one? I have paid Rs 12600 for this phone and if this can not withstand 6 months of normal use then what is the point?

For that to happen, Reliance must focus on improving their network infrastructure, implementing new technologies and improve their Customer Care. Instead, they unnecessarily spend their energy in modifying handsets in that process many of the features are disabled. So long they keep handset manufacturers hand tied they can never think of coming up with feature rich handsets for their customers.

My guess is, it would take another (6 months maximum) few months before it hits the market. They must get rid of existing Nokia 6255 from the warehouse before bulk ordering 6265.

Go to another local Nokia Service center and do not tell them anything about physical damange and tell them you only have software problem. May be this would help you. But for me I got a replacement and I am trying to sell it!

This ancient model phones can be given away for free because no one in this earth will be using it other than Reliance. Once dumping all the handsets back to the customer it "may" upgrade its network and forcing the customers again to buy new models (these newer models not necessarily feature-rich, latest ones). Good tactics. We can safely assume that Reliance will not come up with any new handset models for few months till all older model phones are dumped on the customers hands.

Finally Nokia gave me a replacement. Unfortunately, Nokia allowed the situation to go out of hands and finally doing the inevitable. Customers like me who is investing more than 10-20K on hand sets expect good quality and durability that shall last atleast few years if not many years. Otherwise, the investment on handsets will not make any sense. Instead of coming up with many new releases (without major improvements except for different panels or styles) they must get their basic correct. If the credibility is lost, no amount of hardwork will be recognized. Fortunately for Nokia it has established its brand but it is not interested in keeping its good image.

Good to see BSNL is keeping other operators on their toes with their innovative One Rate plan. Here after moving Landline customers to Mobile may be difficult. Further reduction is almost impossible so all operators need to increase their bandwidth and make lots of offers. You may able to see lots of hue and cry related to availability of lines after March unless all operators have already upgraded their infrastructure to handle heavy call volumes.

BSNL One India seems to be an exciting one if it works! It can beat the hell out of One India (Rs 1100) plans in RIM/Airtel etc... I am not sure whether BSNL has this top-up options in case if you need to talk extra without updting your validity?

No need to lose your heart. Just imagine yourself 5-10 years back and think where we are now. Give time to progress. One India with high monthly rental may be the initial step need not be the FINAl step towards achieving One India One Rate. Later you may very well witness everyone giving 1000-5000 free any time minutes etc...that time even One Rate One India may not be an attractive offer!

Seeing frequent new models in CDMA segment will be a difficult one. I am not sure how it works but my understanding is Reliance purchases these handsets from the manufacturers in bulk. If this is the case unless the older stocks are sold they will not even bother to release new models because people will any way go for new models. Reliance can not sell those older models for the same price. For any new models from the same manufacturer, with same or improved features may take minimum One Year.

As I had mentioned earlier. My guess is that Reliance might release this during August'2006. Because it released Nokia 6255 only on August'2005. Since Reliance may be bulk ordering these phones, if it introduces new models quickly, it may have to forgo its older phones for which Reliance would have made their payments. Getting frequent higher end handsets in CDMA will be a distant dream for sometime. If the new model is Nokia you need to wait for one year before the product gets stabilized with patches or with some other issues.

I invested around INR 60,000 on various Nokia phones: Nokia 6600 - INR 22,500 - Frozen and almost fought Indo-Pak war with Nokia Care people before getting replacement Nokia 6255 - INR 12.600 - Build quality is poor; could not withstand normal usage the hinge is cracking; right now with Nokia Care for the past 2 weeks. Nokia N90 - INR 32,000 - Totally flawed software. You need to reboot as many times. Sony Ericsoon Z600 - INR 18,000 - I have been using this for 2 years without a single issue. Infact, I abuse this phone more than Nokia phones. I am disappointed with all Nokia phones. European products can never match Japaneeze. Japs are the realy quality people in this earth. Europeans zimply pretend like expensive, premium bull**** etc...but their most premium products can never match against humble & quality Japanize products.

Throw these bloody Nokia phones in the face of Nokia's(Damn) Customer(Dont) Care people. THis phone is anyway an useless one.

Dear Manish, Thanks for your tips! Let me try that. But my handset is still with the Nokia Service center.

Nothing great for exisitng users. The headline is misleading. It makes you to think that 'all' outgoing calls are free; the reality is, only Rs 2000 worth of outgoing is free. Marketing gimmicks!

Nokia phones are sheer waste. I have wasted around INR 60K (6600, 6255& N90) on Nokia phones. Nokia (Damn) Customer (Dont) Care will make sure your experience with Nokia goes further South. You can give Nokia a royal skip. Sony Ericsson would be an ideal choice but I really doubt if SE has any CDMA version. My best suggestion is to go for unbranded cheapest model and wait for SE to comeup with a suitable model of your liking. Nokia phones are just rippers.