Buying a Prepaid SIM card in India as a foreigner

Go into a Airtel showroom and ask them to stop the spam messages. They de-activated your sim card because of the paper work that you signed when you 1st get the sim. You have to fill out the same paper work again and the shop sends it off again !
Might be worth just getting a new sim card again in the next place you go to. Trouble is you will have a different number , but at least you will still have contact with your family at home <until they cut that one off as well >

Thought I would add my recent experiences with buying and trying to use an Indian SIM card in the hope of saving someone else some grief.

Thanks to all the above posts I trotted off to India with a spare passport photo, copies of passport, and a single copy of proof of UK address (in the hope that this would negate the need to prove local address).

I bought a SIM card (Vodafone) from a little shop in Mysore, Karnataka handed over all the papers and photos and left 10 minutes later with a working phone that both made and received calls (unlocked UK phone plus new SIM). Silently thanked the IMers that made sure I was well prepared and went smugly on my way.

2 days later, by which time I was roaming in Kerala, I started getting regular text messages along the lines of 'send us your registration details or we'll cut you off'. But since I was roaming I couldn't call the customer centre (whose number only works in 'home' state) and sort it out. After another couple of days the texts stopped and the phone would receive but not make calls.

Thanks to a very helpful and persistent front desk clerk at the hotel we were in at the time, whose manager had a friend at senior level in Vodafone, we got it reactivated. This guy personally sent everything off again (including fresh photo that we had to acquire) by fax to Vodafone, including confirmation of local address as we no longer had a proof of UK address, and we thought we were OK now......

Three days later the 'send us your registration details' message started again....but as we were still roaming we couldn't do anything. On return to Karnataka we went into a Vodafone store (not a dealer) and asked them the status. To which they replied 'we haven't got the registration details'. We trotted off got copies of passport, travel insurance policy (the only vaguely official bit of paper we had with an address on it), and yet another photo. Back at the Vodafone store, after queing for 45 minutes we spent 10 minutes filling in yet more forms they finally they told us that we were now officially registered. We can only assume that we are, as we were leaving the next day for the UK, so will not really know until next trip!

So my advice would be:

1. Try to buy direct from Airtel, Vodafone, or whoever rather than from an ordinary shop. Vodafone staff have realtime access to update the master system while you are there, shops have to be relied on to send off stuff to the provider with all the uncertainty of whether they do it, whether it arrives, whether it's the right bit of paper.

2. Try to ensure that you will not be roaming until you have had the SIM for a few days, so that if there are problems you can talk to customer service in your 'home' area to sort them.

3. Take multiple copies of paperwork and photos. Or at least email yourself scans of a proof of address doc that you could reprint while travelling. They accepted our insurance policy, but proof of address is hard to generate while you are away, unlike a passport and visa copy, or a photo.

4. If there are problems, always go straight to the company store not a shop (may be hard in remote areas). Whenever we visted an ordinary shop, they just tried to sell us a new SIM!!

In terms of roaming Vodafone was fine. While in Kerala we were attached to BSNL, so I guess it no longer matters about what Vodafone's coverage is, more that it has agreements with the others. And there was no problem topping up out of area, either.

Hey Sue,

Thanks a lot for posting this. I was going to buy a SIM card in Mysore too, and leave only a couple of days afterwards. Together with Steven_Ber's adventures, your post settles it for me. For a small tour like mine (lots of miles but little time, 3 weeks), it's just not worth the hassle. It was less difficult to use the web and the phone booths 10 years ago, so I guess I'll stick to the "old-fashioned" way. Thanks again.

Didn't mean to put you off totally!!! I think you'd be fine if you found a Vodafone or Airtel or Reliance or whoever you prefer company store in Mysore (which should be easy, it's a big enough place). Our mistake was in not realising that this was the way to go.

And it is very cheap and handy - SIM card and loads of time cost us about 400 Rupees. And then we could call the UK for about 5 Rupees per minute, which was much more convenient than internet, particularly when internet speed out of town is still very low.

And it was great when you got lost trying to find where you were going to stay vs the old way!

You're right, lots of advantages. But you see, unlike you I won't have a second chance. I won't be in any big-ish city between my first 2 days in Mysore and my last 2 days in Aurangabad. No option to fill the paperwork again, certainly not at approved dealers. So if the service is discontinued when I leave Mysore I'll just have to throw the SIM card away. And I'm on a tight budget, that SIM card is one hotel night for me. I hate not to pack an emergency device, but if I can't use it to phone, not sure there's a point...

I think I am somewhat up-to-date with mobile phones in India...though I am hoping that someone can help me with the following:

1.I am travelling India/Nepal/Bangkok over a 4 week period. If I buy a sim in India, can I use it in the other countries?

2. What documents (in India) qualify as proof of your address?

3. What do you do to the phone numbers on your mobile when you call them from India/Nepal (as in, do you need to add prefixes to the Australian mobile numbers)?
Thanks guys! Happy travels

No time to read the last few posts, so appologies if anyone has already mentioned the following.

I found out why they cut my phone off, about a week after we get a new sim card, the company telephone you to verify your details, if they get no responce they text you, if still no responce, they cut you off.

It's all to prevent terrorism, so seems fair enough.

The problem was, I was getting telephone calls trying to sell me things and text adverts (and when I bought the sim card I wasn't told the company would try to call me), so I was just ignoring the calls and texts.

Ah yes.

You have to find the appropriate page on their website. They've been told that, by law they must give customers the chance to opt out.

Nobody told them they had to make it obvious how though! So don't look for any obvious links!

I was getting three or four a day until I found out how to stop them --- and then it said something-like 28 days to take effect.

Actually they stopped immediately.

But I still get stuff from other companies...

As long as its enabled for international roaming - then yes. May depend on which service provider you go with, whether they allow international roaming on prepay, etc - so may pay to confirm this on arrival. Technically there is no reason why you can't roam with an indian prepay sim - its just matter of whether or not the plan you have covers this - and you have sufficient credit. Any particular reason why you would want to roam on an indian sim (not being nosey - but just wondering why not use a sim from your own country instead since you probably already have one)?

For India residents it would be a utilities bill, lease agreement, etc - the sort of thing with your name on it plus the address you are living at. If you check some of the posts here you'll find some visitors to india have used their hotels address .

Don't quite understand the question - but if you have an indian sim card in your mobile then you have a local indian number - so any call to another country will be just a typical international call (so yes, you'll have to use a prefix infront).

good luck.

Thankyou for all your help. It is really appreciated. I checked how much phoning Australia whilst in India on my Australian sim and I will be charged nearly $7/minute! I think I will look into an Indian sim

for the cost of a 10 minute phone call on that sim - you could buy a new phone here (probably with a years worth of calls)!

hey guys, thanks for all the info on this forum, its really helpful, but I was wondering if someone can tell me if I can get my phone (W600i), unlocked in India, and if it would work there if I buy a prepaid SIM.

It's all a complete rip off, India must be the most expensive country in the world to use a mobile phone. Who's ever heard of 'roaming charges' within a country? What a con, oh and your Airtel/Hutch/whatever SIM isn't valid in the Northeast either, but you can buy one in Tripura, for which you need an address and a letter of introduction and is valid in the.. err "Northeast", but not in Assam!
I revalidated my Delhi SIM for "lifetime" recently with Airtel for RS295 (and I got a whopping RS10 'talktime') and my validity expires on 22 Dec 2010, maybe some god has told them that I'll be dead by then. Avoid Indian mobile operators until they get their act together and start to charge sensible tariffs.

Anorak, I guess it was a rant...however whatever you have said, it simply shows about your lack of knowledge of the system and tariff charts...please read things carefully and understand the geography, security issues, and tariff plans, before ranting.

And can you tell me how much money you actually spent on this in totality in India ?

I'm guessing it was a rant as well, but as someone from the UK as well, I can't think of a cheaper country to use a mobile in than India!

Roaming charges are relative. I think it costs me about 50p a minute to receive a call from the UK when I am in France (maybe as little as 25 miles from the UK). When roaming anywhere in India out of Karnataka (where I bought my SIM) I think the charge was about 1 or 2INR per minute. And I could call the UK from anywhere in India for the equivalent of 6p a minute.

It is really worth doing your research before buying (or rebuying) a SIM, as some of operators have airtime agreements with other operators so their SIMs work virtually everywhere in India. Others only work if they have a mast locally. If you want to ask that sort of question go to a company-owned store in a large city - the guy on the corner of the street won't have a clue and will give the aswer he thinks you want to hear.

Also, in the UK most of the tariffs from most of the airtime providers are structured in a similar way even if the charges are different. 10 years ago that was not true in the UK - e.g. some providers charged extra for cross-network minutes, others didn't. India is still at the stage where everyone is fighting for market share and the tariff structures vary enormously. And most of them are not easy to see. The best way we found was to ask to look at the back of the SIM packet, where it was all detailed clearly (but in very small print!!)

With regard to the 'lifetime' side of things, we got very confused. Fortunately found a really helpful vendor who called up Vodafone customer centre to make sure he answered our questions correctly. Can't answer for anyone else's Lifetime, but with Vodafone you still have to top up with ordinary talk time at least once a year (even if it is only with 10INR) to keep the lifetime, and the expiry date moves forward based on that top up. Which really doesn't work too well if you may be away from India for over a year. If yours is the same principle, I am guessing that if you top up in 2010 at some stage, the expiry date will jump forward.