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

skk

Adding some extra info - my brother in Mumbai tells me that BSNL is a government owned entity and not very good and non-responsive to customer complaints. he understands my requirements - high reliability ( there's money at stake here, what with equity trading and so on ) is critical. He uses Vodaphone for both voice and for internet access ( via cellular technology) - he's of course given me the phone # of the Vodaphone agent - and of course I'm going to take his advice and no doubt he'll accompany me to Mr Patil as I buy the service - Damn it - I was supposed to do all this on my own. As I explained my analysis to him and my choices he was very good, didn't snigger once but just calmly offered an alternative viewpoint. Damn it - will I _ever_ get to know that place ?

-K

brownboy66

I'll put in a plug for airtel here - only because they have a bigger GSM network than vodafone and we've found their service to be pretty good by comparison.

We originally went with Tata Indicomm - but it was not a good experience (2 weeks to get a phone connected, and 3 months to get the voice mail operational - then sim card problems which were never resolved). By comparison the airtel service was working within six hours, and the voicemail was self service and working in 5 minutes!

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shashank.aggarwal

Airtel sure tops the service list. I am using Idea for few years now, their coverage is not as good as Airtel, however the customer service is very personalized. Especially as I use a post paid connection, so whenever I call, either the IVR asks to call later or my phone gets answered within 30 seconds. No holding time whatsoever...

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puchoo

I;; second BB on this , have tried out enough operators over the last few years and dont think we will move from Airtel anytime soon... 3 mobiles all airtel, broadband is Airtel, landline is also airtel...

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Haylo

Okay, so using the example of Delhi Cabs, I have worked out the following...

00 91 11 44333222 To phone from England
0 11 44333222 To phone from another part of India
44333222 To phone from a landline in Delhi

What I cannot work out is how should I enter these numbers into my mobile's memory, so I can call them from Delhi when I get an Indian SIM card. Dialled on a Delhi based mobile would it be:
0 11 44333222 or
11 44333222

If I entered the number as (+) 91 11 44333222, would (eg Airtel) charge me for an international call?
This is similar to the format I use for my UK numbers (eg + 44 1XXX XXXXXX) and I can dial them from anywhere. My UK provider seems to handle it okay, what about Airtel?

obione980

AFAIK all phone systems worldwide accept the national calling code for calls within the country without charging an international call rate. Same generally with local area codes - they ignore it where it's not required - call goes through as usual.

Many fax machines add the national code for calls to local companies as a default - no extra charge.

Phones (and exchanges - mostly) are clever little buggers!

shashank.aggarwal

you can either store it as 011 - number or +91 11 number it will be treated as local.

Mobile phone numbers are 10 digits and can be stored directly. For inter state mobile phone calls just prefix a 0 (0-mobile number) or a +91-mobile number would work fine.

Network providers automatically detect whether ist a local call or long distance one...no need to worry..

Haylo

Thanks Shashank, that's good to know. One of the few things I have figured out about India is that everything is different - it's good to see that something at least is the same! Haylo

DrHeckleAndMrSnide

Dunno if this is the right thread to post my query, but it's cellphone related, so here goes:

I have an Airtel pre-paid subscription and am using the SIM in a newly purchased Sony Ericsson P1i PDA phone. I subscribed to GPRS by sending the appropriate SMS to the Airtel specified number and saved the settings that I received. However, whenever I launch the in-built browser with a URL (say rediff.com), the browser just says "Connecting" endlessly and nothing further. I was wondering whether this is a problem with the phone or the pre-paid SIM. Has anyone used this particular combination for GPRS and faced similar issues?
The sony ericsson showroom as well as their "service center" seem clueless....when I went to the service center (which is a one-room setup manned by a couple of people), the guy there first tried to unlock the keypad to press buttons....and having failed to do so , said that he would re-load the entire OS and attendant software on the phone and that I would have to leave the cellphone with them for the day.... must say didn't inspire too much confidence in Sony Ericsson's technical support.

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shashank.aggarwal

you should call Airtel and ask them if they need you to do some manual settings. Because in some phones, besides the settings that are sent by the server, they require you to make some manual changes.

brownboy66

hmmmmm.....if you get to the "connecting" stage then it sounds like the number obviously works and clearly the phone setup is detecting GPRS - so no problems on the hardware side. Is this before or after its authenticated your password and id (do you get a window telling you the phone is authenticating)?

With the barest of information - might be one of a couple of things:

a) Wrong ID and password information. Its trying to authenticate but has the wrong information (or your account with airtel simply hasn't been setup at their end yet), so it hangs.....
b) Incorrect setup to authentication server. If I remember rightly airtel use a proxy server - so what you have to do is load the address of the proxy in your mobile (details of the proxy are on the airtel website - but its takes a bit of hunting to find it),

sorry - can't be or more help.

dcamrass1

Of to India in 3 weeks.Will starting and finishing in Kolkata on to Orrisa & AP for 50 days with 5 days Mumbai at the end. Total 55 days
Have Nokia 1100 unlocked with Sim card
1 - Will it work in India?
2 - Gather there is problem getting the Sim Card, proof of address & so on what does one do to make sure that we do get it (bit dumb to going around with a dead weight)?
3 - From one of the previous post seems there is time limit, depends how much the card is - the more the longer is valid, as we don't intend to make a lot of calls more SMS, how can we get round the time limit?
4 - Gather Airtel is the best?
5 - Think most of time will be in Orissa. Where would be bet to get Sim card (Only decided to go yeterday so no proper plan as yet)
If there is anthing more to help us out will be glad for the info.
Will posting in further queries in the Kolkata, Orissa & AP forums so please go easy on us, think have more or less got the gist of the "Search IM" but am sure to ask a dumb question (what do you want from a couple "SC" still trying to figure out India and that's after many visits)
Many Thanks
Elinor & David