Mobile phone coverage India-wide

dani

THAT low? Are you serious?
seems I have to look for alternatives, I can't work with such a low speed

jyotirmoy

Do you get more speed with a mobile handset in your country?




Dani,
In a mobile phone the signal is routed through multiple hubs or base stations so although the switch is capable of higher data transfer rate due to multiple routing the effective delivery rate gets substantially reduced, thats the catch. When I wrote 28kbps I meant overall figure. Depending upon the network condition some times you get more.

samir_brd

There are two CDMA internet offerings in the country. Tata Indicom and Reliance. Reliance has the better all India coverage. But in pockets, Tata Indicom is preety good.

You can buy a PCMCIA card from Reliance, or use a handset with a data cable.

I think that the speed is preety decent. Certainly better than dial-up. My typical connection speed is 115.2 kpbs, and I consistently get download speeds in excess of 10 kbps.

Regards
Samir

dani

in Switzerland we don't have cdma2000 but the european standard UMTS. The speed would be higher, but the costs are so hight, I could not afford it.
But then, I don't need it here, because at home I have a fast adsl connection, at university wlan access and at the office the company network.
In India I will need an internet connection for some months. I guess it's not worth the trouble to apply for an adsl connection, and it would restrict me to one location anyway. So I think the only feasible alternative would be cmda2000. Or can you think of other alternatives?

john.sw

1] I use Reliance, and I don't know if there are others

2] I have good coverage in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Mumbai

3] I have recorded download speeds of up to 128kbps. Upload speeds are slower, and speeds depend on how busy the network is. You get faster speeds in the middle of the night. The Internet connection is usable - better than 56k dialup.

4] I have never had a connection blackout. Connecting is very quick and reliable. I rarely drop the line.

5] VoIp on Skype is possible, but has latency problems. I can use VoIp with friends and family, but it is not good enough for client use.

It is also very cheap @ Rs.30/- and hour peak and Rs.15/- and hour off peak on pre-pay and there are some attractive pro-pay packages with unlimited access.

__________________
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dani

That speed would be sufficient.

Can anyone point me to a coverage map?
Is there anywhere a list with the prices of the cdma handsets and the datacables? They are not stated on the reliance website

dani

how bad is the latency? I'd like to buy a skypein number so my family could reach me on a normal swiss phone number. But I'll only do that if the quality is acceptable

I'll probably go for a flatrate because I'll use the connection all day

keshav

Any particular reason why you are interested only in CDMA? Why not GSM if there is Edge capability?

I suggest you look here:

http://www.airtelworld.com/datacard/

dani

I had the impression that EDGE is slower than CDMA. But then, even if the technical possible speeds are lower, it doesn't necessarily have to be the case with the actually offered speeds.
Thanks for your hint!
Do you have experience with an Airtel EDGE connection?

keshav

I did use EDGE for a brief period and it was reliable.

john.sw

Latency is "medium".

You need to try it for youself to find out if the quality is acceptable to you.

samir_brd

You can't use a handset from another operator. You must buy the handset from Reliance only, which has a limited number of offerings. You could of course also use the Reliance connection to make overseas calls etc. too, where the rates vary from Rs. 9 to Rs. 16 /minute based on location.

I think the cheapest handset you can get is something like Rs. 2500. Datacables for LG and Samsung are not sold by Reliance, but you can buy them from the market for a couple of hundred Rs.

Regards
Samir

dani

samir, thanks for that info.
Sounds like an affordable solution if I indeed can use the handset for at least a year as planned.
At least I don't see a cheaper and equally convenient solution.

john.sw

I have the LG RD-2230 handset and data cable.

I bought both of them at the Reliance main dealer Commercial road, Ooty.

Total cost: Rs.3500/- including sim and connection pack.

tasuray

As being a govt. concern BSNL has certain norms to issue SIMs. Of course they have some internal inefficiency too. BSNL is changing their technology as well as increasing the towers through out India. Still BSNL has the maximum coverage in rural and himalyan India. I got BSNL connection in the Keoladeo Ghana Bird Sanctuary, Bharatpur, Rajasthan. Rather BSNL has problems in urban India. BSNL SIMs have huge demand in the country and this situation is exploited by the blackers.