Idea Cellular is the 3rd operator I’m trying, in Poona. I was with Reliance for almost 4 years …until I got absolutely miffed with their policies like abrupt discontinuation of call waiting, voice mail and ALL other value added services for all pre-paid customers.
Also handsets are far from satisfactory. Added to this are absolutely unattractive tariffs and unexplained deductions from your pre-paid balance! SMSing is also a bad experience with Reliance. This and a lot of other issues forced me to join the GSM gang and I got myself a much better handset with an Airtel SIM.
Airtel was a very bad experience with respect to voice calls. Call drops are extremely frequent and voice clarity can often be pathetic. Total network outages were also experienced! However, it was very good for SMSing and no unexplained deductions from your balance…
At least not in my 4 month experience with them. Tariff with the Friendz pack was also attractive and I could call people on Airtel for 10 paise per min in happy hours and national SMS for 25 paise. Have mentioned more details of my experiences in my reviews on Reliance and Airtel.
Since Airtel was a bad experience for voice calls, I was forced to try Idea …as I had friends telling me that the Hutch network here is same/worse than Airtel. I got myself an I-ard Active pack with a validity of 1 year for around Rs. 500 with around the same value as talk-time. The I-card Active plan has tariffs identical to the Airtel Friendz pack. So now I thought I had the same tariffs as with Airtel and a much better network. For sure, the network is much better… call drops are rare and voice clarity is can be almost as good as CDMA …esp. if you have a good handset.
Other advantages with Idea is that I can use Netbanking for recharging my account and also Idea displays the balance and cost of the last call/SMS after every call/SMS. I didn’t have these important facilities with Airtel.
Well, my euphoria was short lived …Idea seems to be as effective and brazen a swindler as Reliance! For eg. my plan has 10 paise per min. calling to local Idea mobiles in happy hours, ie. Between 3 – 5 pm and 10 – 8 am. And I have noticed that even when I call in happy hours …esp. around a half hour close to the beginning of the happy hours, then I am billed at Re. 1 per min instead of 10 paise per min! The is open swindling!!
Another issue I have faced is that the Idea network does not seem capable to handle group SMSing! If you select multiple recipients (in a ph that has this capability) for an outgoing SMS, then you would notice that only the 1st one or two SMSes get thru and the rest fail. Most phones will try to re-send the SMSes, so most may eventually get thru (after several minutes, & if you are in coverage and if your ph is switched on), but not always. In any case, the purpose of group SMS is defeated, as not all the recipients will get the SMS simultaneously. Group SMSing works perfectly with an Airtel SIM.
Idea has perhaps the worst web-site compared to all the other operators. Even basic info like current plans are not given. It is truely amazing that a large telco has such a shoddy web presence. This leaves both new and old customers with total lack of information regarding their plans, etc ...as Idea does not have a working customer service helpline either!
All my attempts to bring these issues to Idea Cellular’s notice for resolution have been unsuccessful. The helpline is almost permanently busy. I might not be exaggerating when I say Idea does not have a working Customer Care! Even if you get thru after zillion attempts, the executives are not good at solving any problem. Often the line is just disconnected before you can even explain the problem! Even calling and writing to the Nodal officer has not produced any result at all.
It seems all the telecom companies are almost equally in the swindling business and this way or that they are determined to loot! It is high time something is done to stop this broad day-light looting.
EDIT (1/11/2008) - Quite sometime after I wrote this review, on contacting the Appellete Authority of Idea Cellular, I got a v good response from their office. I was promised that the overcharging problem will be looked into, and it was. In short they did sort out the problem... for about a month, when it again reoccured (their system clock was set faster). I had to make another complaint to the Appellete Authority, and the problem was again rectified. As of now, the billing is as it should be.
On finally getting a positive response from them, I’m forced to include this addendum and up their ratings. Their network continues to be the best.