Enough was enough ... seeing everybody worth his name moving around with a mobile phone in his pocket, I decided to jump into the bandwagon of cellphone owners and got myself a sparkling new Samsung R220 ( thanks to pooj and many other Mouthshut community members ofcourse :) ) This was the tough part done ... or so I thought. Now the part that remained was choosing a cellular service provider. My zone (UP(E)) has a paltry 2 operators only, one is the Essar Cellphone and the other is Cellone service. The choice was never going to be tough... Cellone. Essar is notorious for its high rates and poor network coverage. So Cellone pre paid is the service I chose. I have found it to be pretty good and here’s why :-
Coverage:- Probably the only cellular service throughout the country which has coverage in even the most far flung areas. No other service provider comes close. Not even only in cities, even if you are travelling in Highways or by train, u will get complete network coverage. Some of my friends with Essar dont get even one bar in our hostel rooms but I get complete 6 bars :)
Voice Quality:- Excellent, you get crystal clear voice even when you are in a area where u get only one bar. Never once so far my call has been cut midway other than when I am calling to Essar. In comparison, essar sounds like a voice chat on a 28.8kbps dialup ( I hope u understand )
Network Usage:- This area has seen massive downfall in quality. When it was launched, u got absolutely no Network Busy signals and calls were connected in a matter of fraction of seconds, but now at peak times , especially around 8-9pm u have to try for 5-6 times before your call gets through. Seems BSNL has to increase its capacity to catch up with its popularity.
Tariffs:- This is also one of the areas where Cellone beats the other competiore black and blue with its aggressive tariffs. Its tariffs are even less than the landline rates in the case of STD calls ( yes !!! ). Plus it is more than willing to get into a price war with the other biggies ( forced Airtel to reduce SMS rates to 60 paise recently )
Facilities:- Here Cellone loses out to other competitors. International SMS does not work yet, WAP is only available on Post Paid, No MMS yet. But Cellone is slowly launching its value added services and within a few months it will be offering all of theese at real competitve rates ( hopefully ! )
Support:- Improving, when I just got my connection, support was not good at all ... too less operators and not helpful at all. Now they have increased the number of customer care reps and they are a bit more knowledgable on tarriffs and all.
One big drawback though .... to get the initial sim ... u have to wait sometimes for a month or so because as soon as sims are released ... all of them are soldout within a day or two ... seems like BSNL is not able to copeup with the demand for Cellone .....
Well Cellone has reached the number 2 mark in All India Cellular Market due to its excellent Coverage and best tariffs. I am sure that it would soon knock off Airtel from its pedestal position. But it sure needs to improve in some areas if it can continue its march.