Prepaid mobile phone in India - a starter's guide! (roaming, SIM cards, networks...)

Rogue Two

Yep.

1. Plug your USB key in;
2. Wait for the message in the bottom-right corner 'your device is now ready to use';
3. Open Windows Explorer;
4. Open the drive corresponding to your USB drive;
5. Click 'Skype' or 'Skype.exe.'

Skype runs.

If the computer you're using has a feature called 'autorun' enabled, you can skip steps 4-5. You'll know whether this is the case becuase 30 sec - 5 minutes after plugging in the USB key (depending on the speed of the machine you're using) Skype will run automatically.

Please let me know if this isn't clear.

RogueII

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patti123

steven_ber That plug adapter you already got should be ok if you have been plugging other Uk electrical stuff in it while you were in India .
My battery always stays in the mobile when i had it unlocked. I still think the market is your best bet to get it unlocked, as you will be without a mobile for a few days while they unlock it in India .
What make is your mobile ? i unlocked one of my mobiles myself from the internet for free . If you put your make model number into Google then add the word unlock ,see what comes up.
I still say dont buy a mobile in India ,they might have Nokia on them but they are not made as good as the ones we buy here.
I dont know anyone with a BSNL sim card but i mainly stay in Goa and we all have Airtel or Idea .

yeshekathy

Does anyone know if airtel prepaid sim cards work in Goa?

patti123

yeshekathy Yes thats what i use in Goa . For 15rs a day you can plug your mobile into your laptop and get on the internet .A lot of Uk people use it that way .

yeshekathy

thank you Rogue two and Patti 123 - very helpful.
I love this forum.

patti123

steven_ber Are you sure your mobile is locked to one network ? have you tried putting in a different network sim card to see if it works ?

fsg

Steven

I dont know if you are on our way or not to India

There was a post a while back on how to unlock your phone.

A google search will tell you how to do it , zero £s not £10.

I paid 250/- 5 years ago should be cheaper now.

I have found BSNL works fine for me, and certainly not expensive for calls to UK.


Good trip

fajitanumerouno

OK, lets see if I have figured this out.

If I want to use a mobile in India when I travel there for a few weeks in December, and I have read the above posts correctly the best thing I could do is...

1. Get a 3 band phone at home and make sure its unlocked

2. Remove local sim chip (US chip).

3. Go to India (Ahmedabad basically) and go to a big shop that sells SIM chips (to avoid long wait on activation) and then buy a SIM chip and a prepaid card for the minutes. Maybe could get relative to do this since they have local address.

Would it be easier just to buy this from this website www.bootsnall.com or is it cheaper to buy it in India. I am about cheaper at this point. Probably don't need the phone a lot but with kids and meeting up with family could be useful.

Is Airtel good in Ahmedabad or Hutch or whatever? Some info on this site is from 2004 and things might have changed.

Maybe don't need phone at all, but what about charging a US phone in India, will the electric fry it. I would need to convert the power but are the electric surges a huge problem?

Thanks
Val

brownboy66

yes You've summed it up pretty well!

Can't comment on the price comparison thing. Also I'm wondering how an internet website would get around the rigorous identity check/ paper process here - but even saying that I would imagine it would be cheaper to do it here - plus if you buy from a website and something doesn't work here - not much recourse for getting it fixed (whereas buying it locally here means you at least have someone to yell at)!

Airetl are good. Great service and excellent coverage (more so than Vodafone I think - (who took over Hutch). Re the electrical - your phone will come with a small step down transformer since it only requires a small amount of charge to recharge the battery. That should be okay for the voltage here (be aware that its 220 volts here in India). An adapter for the plug will be needed. Check out this thread for all the info on plugs..

Electric Supply Pins Plugs Adapter etc explained

happy travels.

Anders

A 3 band GSM phone bought in the US will only have 1 of the Indian frequencies, makes more sense to buy the phone in India.

burbujasdeamor

I have a Motorola V66 (3 band) from Taiwan, so I guess the recharger should work in India too.

As for the SIM card & roaming, I'm screwed one way or another because I won't be in any city for more than 4-5 days. My first stop is Bhuj (Gujarat), then off to Rajasthan, and onwards (for a total of 10 weeks ).

cristos7

Namaste,

I have an older/basic (and I think "unlocked") Nokia 6060 cell phone; does it make more operational and financial sense to buy Indian Simm cards for use in said device or to buy a prepaid Indian cell phone?

In either event, I don't think I'll be using it much. (I don't IM or have many friends to text with;-(((You speak "with" other people - gramatically, do you also text "with" or "to" other people?)

Thanks in advance for your advice regarding the important part of my query:-D

Happy Trails,

Chris

kristinm

ditto question above - we will certainly need to speak with my parents back here in Aus, and if they call us on our Aus phone with roam set we pay the international call!!! and call ahead to confirm hotels etc while in India....

3 options are - get a sim for an old phone and hope we can a get one, and b that it works everywhere we are going
Buy a prepaid phone and sim in India and hope the same as above
Take one of our phones on roam and just cop the call fees from back here... certainly the easiest option but VERY expensive I think! Although we could get one of those cheap call cards that works with a mobile and use that.

A friend just got back and said that members of her party who had planned to get an Indian SIM gave up as they couldn't get one because of the identity/address issues.

Anders

If you bought your 6060 in the US then it has GSM 850/1900 and it cannot be used in India.

fajitanumerouno

You can go to the website of your phone and find out what bands it can do and if it can be unlocked and how. The guy at the AT&T store here told me my phone did not do tri band (even though I had the international discussion when I bought it 2 years ago) so I happened to look at the website and discover that it does cover the tri band thing and the supposed 900 or whatever it is for India. I then located it in the long menu of the phone and there it was. I have a Motorola and I called AT&T and they then had someone e-mail the unlock code for me so now if I can get a relative there to get us a SIM chip and prepaid we may be set. We don't need to make a lot of calls, just the here we are, or we'll meet you here kind of thing. But could be good to have. I just don't want to buy a phone to use for a few weeks, seems silly. I cannot wait to see how this whole gadget thing works out though. If you search for the unlock thing Nokia is supposed to be fairly easy but you need some kind of tri band thing. Now I just want to get going on this trip!