When my family and I visited India last summer, we decided that our US worldwide cellphone service wasn’t going to meet our needs. In the US, we have AT&T wireless, which provides a global service known as AT&T world traveler allowing you to use your cell phone all around the world. Unfortunately, the service would cost us $5 a month + $2 per minute in India. This exorbitant rate is fine for airports, but for general use, no way!
Since we were going to be in India for long time (2 months) and we would be going out a lot, I asked my uncle if it was possible to get an Indian cell phone for general use. He said it should be possible and that the best companies were AirTel and Vodafone. He said that he had used AirTel for several years without any problems.
Getting the Connection:
I decided to visit the AirTel website to see what the requirements for foreigners obtaining a cell phone were. AirTel claimed to need a copy of a valid passport and a copy of an official itinerary with your return flight dates listed. I called up AirTel and they claimed that most local vendors would be able to complete the transaction, but if there was a problem I could come down to an official AirTel office and they could help me.
So we went to our local South City II D-Block market in search of an AirTel vendor. There were quite a few around, but most seemed apprehensive at selling me a pre-paid connection, so I decided just to buy a cell phone. I bought a Nokia 2600 cell phone for about Rs. 4, 000/-.
We then went to the Galleria towers market (DLF) and found an official AirTel office, which helped us to get an AirTel pre-paid connection. The AirTel salesman was polite and professional and explained the rates, ISD &STD, and the various plans. He even explained that the govt. places around a 8-10% tax on pre-paid cards so an Rs. 1, 000/- card would probably give me around Rs. 910/- worth of talk-time. The AirTel salesman said that it would take up to 48 hours to verify my identity and my travel plans. After that the connection would be started.
Surprisingly, within 12 hours I got a confirmation SMS from AirTel that my service has now been activated.
The Rates:
AirTel’s rates were pretty reasonable with local and STD charges ranging from Rs. 1-1.5/- per minute and Rs. 10.50/- for international calls. Of course roaming calls will be extra. Vodafone had similar rates, but IDEA was cheaper.
The Network:
AirTel has one of the largest cellular networks in India. Most of the time I used to get between 3 and 5 signal bars on my mobile (1 bar = poor signal, 6 bars = very good signal). Of course, network quality can vary, but I used between West Delhi (East Patel Nagar) to Gurgaon for about two months and the signal strength was always very good.
Network Rating (Based on my experiences in Delhi & Gurgaon): 3.8/5
Call Clarity:
This depends on the type of phone you have and the cell phone provider you’re using. Don’t expect to buy a cheap cell phone (say around Rs.800-1200/-) and expect to have good voice quality.
The Nokia 2600 I bought was a low-mid range cell phone, meaning that the voice quality would be average to good. Overall, I was impressed that most of my calls went through promptly and all of the calls I made within India were exceptionally clear. In fact. some calls were almost as clear, as my land-line!
I never experienced a network outage and experienced only 2 dropped calls out of the 1, 000 or so calls I made, both times I was on the Delhi-Gurgaon expressway, so that can be forgiven.
While roaming, during my visit to Pune and Mumbai, I was impressed that my phone caught the AirTel tower within a minute of turning it on after I exited an Jet Airways aircraft. The call clarity while roaming was excellent and I never experienced a dropped call while Pune or in Mumbai. Each time I checked I had at least 4 bars, I guess this is the advantage of dealing with one of the largest cell phone companies in India.
International calls weren’t nearly as clear and there was noticeable static, but you could still have a conversation without much difficulty.
SMS:
SMS stands for short message service and allows people to send short text messages to your buddies. AirTel charges around Rs. 2/- per SMS and the service worked fine every-time I had to use it.
Customer Service:
The one thing where AirTel drastically lags behind other competitors is customer service. Many of the AirTel post-paid connection horror stories you see on mouthsut.com are due to AirTel’s poor service.
At any time you can check your balance on your phone by dialing *123# or by dialing the regular customer service number. The one thing I hate about AirTel is that you’re constantly bombarded with AirTel ads on your phone and one time I didn’t listen to a pre-recorded AirTel message about the missed call service and pressed 1, so I got charged Rs. 25/- for activating the missed call service.
When I called up customer support and told them what happened, they claimed that they could cancel the service, but would refund only Rs. 15/-, as they charge Rs. 10/- for activating the service. I asked the rep. if there was anyway to cancel the telemarketing calls I got from AirTel and other companies and he said the best thing to do was to go to Airtel’s website and sign up for the DO NOT Disturb Registry. I did that and within a week, all marketing calls stopped.
Customer Service Rating: 2.5/5
Easy Recharge:
With a prepaid connection, the nice thing is that you don’t have to deal with customer support all that often. You just pay for an easy recharge and once that’s done you can use your phone as much as you want. Once you run out of money, you head to any shop, selling AirTel pre-paid cards and ask for a recharge. The shopkeeper will ask you for your number, then take the money, and send you an SMS confirming the recharge. Always make sure to check your balance by dialing *123# before leaving the store. Recharge values range from Rs. 10 all the way up to Rs. 2121/-. I typically used to buy either the Rs. 995/- or Rs. 1500/- recharges. Each one lasted me about a month, but I made a lot of international calls. Remember when you recharge because of taxes and service fees you won’t get the full amount, on Rs. 995/- I used to get about Rs. 890/- worth of talk-time.
Copyright 2010 by rohank4284