Airtel has been my cell phone provider ever since my company allowed us to choose our own service. Earlier I was with Spice, and went to JTM (which was bought by Airtel) just because it was NOT Spice.
Pros:
1. Very good coverage in the cities, and on the highway. Not so good in remote areas with low population density or low traffic. After all, unlike BSNL, they are in business to make a profit.
2. Very reliable billing - no errors in almost 7 years.
3. Keep adding features (but also keep trying to make me pay for them) such as GPRS, MMS, Blackberry ...
4. Discounts on Airtel-ICICI Credit card which also works at HP pumps without surcharge.
5. Good customer care, even though they never call you back for anything. Doesn’t matter, as the problem usually gets resolved anyway.
6. Roaming can be switched on/off very easily with an SMS so you don’t pay roaming rentals when you’re not using it.
7. If you report poor coverage inside the city, they will usually send someone to check and they do something to the base station to improve the signal.
Cons:
1. Keep sending SMS ads for various offers - it’s possible to stop them, but I’m not sure how.
2. Sometimes they switch on a feature for ’’free’’ and then try to start charging for it. However, as they send an SMS stating the same, you can easily switch it off again without any cost.
3. Charge for detailed bills is irritating. However, the email option is free.
4. Website needs flash, which I hate, and doesn’t seem to work well in Firefox.
5. Website claims to let you link multiple cell numbers to one account, but this always fails.
6. Website complaints are closed with out any visible action.