Buying sim card as a foreigner

Hello could someone advise me on buying a sim card as a tourist? I used to live in India on employment visa which enabled me to provide the residential proof, but now I am planning to come as a tourist and I have no idea how it works with the sim cards in that case... are they easier to get at Delhi airport? Thank you so much for your reply! Nora

Yes there's a booth after you pass through Immigration/ Customs where you can buy a sim card. They take care of everything, forms, photos, whatever. Costs about 500rps with credit of 100rps.

I bought one in Pahar Ganj recently and the sim shop needed to see the name of my hotel. I guess they give that as the address.

This might help:

http://path2yoga.blogspot.com/2011/0...th-mobile.html

The ₹1250/- mentioned in the comment seems a lot more realistic than the ₹95/- in the article.

AndyD 8-)₹

I totally didn't see this booth
I must have been tierd after my long flight
I bought my first sim card from a vendor in Pahar Ganj.

You will need a passport sized photo,bring this with you from home,as well as a photo copy of your passport.It is helpful to have your own photocopys so you don't have to lose sight of your passport.

Unfourtunatley it expired 30 days later??? The man I bought it from said it would be good for my entire trip,but this was not the case.It was an Idea phone.

So I bought a 2nd one,Vodaphone as a fellow traveller had hers for 3 months without problem.

I also used my hotel as my address

Hello Nora

You can buy a sim card in almost any tiny shop in India where you see a sign of one of the Indian mobile service providers. As an address proof you can use a receipt of the hotel/guesthouse where you are staying and that's it but sometimes rules might be different depending on which region/state you are and on the mobile operator. I got sim cards from Aircel, Tata Docomo, Airtel and Vodafone but the most difficult to activate was Vodafone.

Other things that you might need is a copy of your passport, copy of your visa and two passport size photos. Most of the time they will ask for only one photo and only the passport copy.

If the owner of the shop tells you that you can't get a sim card because you are a foreigner then just look for another shop. A sim card might cost something like 45 or 100 rupees. That's what I paid last time that I bought one, about a year ago I think.

You can find more information in this link: How to stay connected with mobile internet while traveling in India

Hi Andy D, 95 Indian rupees is totally realistic. That's the price for a one month unlimited internet access through your phone with no 3G service. Unlimited means actually 1 or 2 GB of data plan but I have never fully use in any given month the 1 or 2 GB even though I have done lots of Skype calls.

On top of that if you want to top up your phone to make a call then you can put as much money as you one like 10 rupees or 10,000 rupees, it's totally up to you.

The 1250 rupees that a commentator put on my blog was for a 10GB plan with 3G access. That's useful if you plan to watch lots of videos on your smartphone.

;-) Marco

Thank you Arrowman, you've actually shared the article that I wrote on my blog about using internet on your phone in India ;-)

The cheapest I could find was a few years ago when Airtel offered 2G on a standard phone SIM for ₹15/- a day (which they didn't always collect). This later went up to (iirc) ₹20/-. That was when only a few people were using data, more recently you have to sign up for some sort of 'Office' app which costs more. The speed on 2G was OK for email and just tolerable for web browsing. This was in Goa.

AndyD 8-)#

You can use the hotel address for residential proof and you will be required to give a copy of your visa as well, along with passport size photo and a copy of your passport. This is from my experience!

Great article - very useful info in there! You used an iPhone 4, so were you able to get a microsim for it quite easily in India? Or did you cut a standard sim down to size?

Yeah, I just cut them with a regular nail cutter, the small scissors type. I have done it several times with no problem at all but I'm sure there must also be sim cards for the iPhone but more expensive. And right now I'm using my iPhone to reply to this threat, pretty cool eh!

lol, very cool yeah, microsims seem to be more expensive in most countries...but I always buy them anyway Only recently found out these tricks to cut the normal ones down!! They even sell special cutters online..!! which would probably be good for someone like me (watch me cut it wrong...ugh...!) Enjoy your trip!

Hi. We flew into Mumbai Airport at night and bought a Vodafone SIM there. Don't do that!! They have to send the form to Vodafone and it supposedly takes 2 working days. Our forms never arrived. We spent over an hour waiting on a Saturday in the Colaba Vodafone shop to find this out (We arrived early Wednesday morning) and they don't connect in the weekends. Eventually, in Aurangabad, nearly a week later we just bought 2 more. We still had some connection issues but the manager of the Vodafone shop in Aurangabad kept helping us until we were connected. I recommend that you go directly to the shop which sells the cards, Vodafone, Airtel, Ideal etc. We had problems with the Vodafone cards. One SIM could send texts overseas but couldn't receive them and the other couldn't send them overseas but seemed to receive some. It may have been an issue of putting + in front of the country code and not 00. As far as providers go Vodafone was a pain to deal with, I got both texts and calls every day offering deals (in Hindi); the shops were incredibly busy as well. Our driver used Ideal and seemed to have no problems with it. I have read another post which recommended Airtel. Probably what we will do next time is keep one phone with our NZ card in it to receive texts or maybe a dual SIM phone is the answer. As far as local texting, calling and Internet connection it is definitely cheaper than using travel SIMs. Also, make sure you have photo copies of your passport and visa along with a passport photo otherwise you can't get a SIM card.