Cellular Network Guru

janetdawson

Networks in India:
India is one place that has both GSM & CDMA networks!
The major providers are:
CDMA
Reliance
Tata Indicom
GSM
Idea (AT&T and Tata JV)
Airtel (goes by name Spice in some areas)
Hutch (goes by name Orange in some areas)
Cellone (government owned company)
If you are using your phone to receive incoming calls only, and are located in one city only for the duration of your stay, you can get any one of the 3 options. Reliance does offer a handset with talk time for Rs. 501, which is about USD 11- wonder how they do that.
If you are using your phone for incoming calls and are travelling about a lot, try and get a Cellone card- though it’s a government owned company the coverage is excellent in remote areas, and it never goes out of coverage area. In addition incoming calls are the cheapest of the lot.
The only problem is it might be hard to get a SIM card of Cellone. Try and arrange one through your landlord, it works cheaper any day.
In case you do not have a resourceful landlord, Reliance still offers the cheapest incoming rates. IN addition to other advantages, Reliance phone come with in built 3G technology- so you can plug your phone to your laptop (data cable costs <Rs.200) and surf as you move.
The only problem is the limited coverage that you get- but that should be no problem if you stick to defined tourist circuits.
But like some of my friends if you have a grudge against CDMA, and your friends are unable to get a Cellone SIM for you, use Airtel SIM anyday. They have the widest coverage in GSM 2nd only to Cellone.
In matter of pure coverage you can rank the companies as:
Cellone
Airtel
Hutch
Reliance
Idea
Tata Indicom
All GSM companies except Cellone have understanding with each other and allow users to roam seamlessly. Cellone does not need tie up because they cover entire India.
Reliance uses WCDMA technology and Tata Indicom CDMA, and both have no roaming agreements.
It is useless to ask for “what is the tariff” in various network as a bitter price war is going on between all operators and rate fall every month.

butterball

Great stuff...

Maybe you can help with the following thread :

GPRS mobile Internet service (via GSM phones) in south India?

Would be good to get the guru verdict on GPRS / mobiles / coverage / speed etc..

Bryan

cool info Janet ...Nice one
Bryan

__________________
Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that),
That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree an a' that.
For a' that, an a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That man to man, the world, o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that.
- Burns

timmy

Good stuff. I just had a look at Cellone, seems the pre-paid version is called Excel. Rates can be found here.

__________________
Read my India Travel Blog from late 2004, or look at my Photo Gallery from my last two trips.

unclelach

Last year I had unexpected trouble with an old Nokia GSM phone I had been given to take on my holiday. The phone worked well in Delhi with an Airtel prepaid SIM card but the only other place where I could make calls was Chennai.

The trouble was that the old phone had only the original GSM frequencies and did not support the second GSM band used to originate calls in most places. Next time I'll just have to buy my own phone.