In a world of cut-throat competition in the telecom industry the end user stands to benefit in terms of costs and services. The foremost and most important question that comes to mind for a new user who is going in for a mobile phone service is usually - ’Which is the most economical service provider?’ Is it Reliance, BPL, Orange, Airtel or Tata Indicom. No wusers hve an option to choose from among 5 service providers in Mumbai. I would say that this question does not have a uniquely ’right’ answer which is valid for everyone. Depending on your usage and requirements the answer will be different. But since it is such a competitive market so be rest assured that none of the players in the market can afford to overcharge customers as compared to any other service provider for the fear of losing customers. So you might find minor differences in pricing between the service providers but there will be no major gaps. But of course all this is purely contextual depending on the individual’s requirement. I would suggest that you start off with the minimum possible monthly plan and then as you go ahead analyze your usage and then decide which plan sutis you best. For eg. if you are a heavy user of local outgoing calls then there are plans which offer local outgoing minutes free every month so you might want to go in for such a plan. On the other hand if you are a heavy STD user then there are plans which offer discounted STD tariffs so you can consider those. For people who require cellphones only for incoming calls there are pre-paid cards which are a good point to start. The only disadvantage of Reliance which I can see right now is that you are locked to the service provider, so that later on if you want to change your service provider you will have to purchase a new instrument since the Reliance one will not work on any other service provider. Tata Indicom is coming out with a sim card based CDMA service which should be a better option. With the recent development in the telecom industry with the TRAI unifying licenses and allowing WLL players like Reliance and TATA to offer services like roaming, sms, etc. the market is set to be even more competitive.