As we have seen huge advertises and massive publication about Reliance India Mobile, now lets look at the facilities offered by them and how useful they can be for you and what problems you will get it.
Free SMS
As Reliance announced Free SMS on their cells, their networks will be down very frequently. Because as being indian people, they will use SMS in so great volume, Reliance’s network wont be able to stand on it. Also their SMS will work well only in their own network (reliance to reliance) but with other GSM networks of other indian as well as other country’s networks their SMS will fail and it wont work properly. The reason is CDMA and GSM are two different technology and SMS exchange keeps on failing and thats why in USA wherever CDMA networks are present SMS is not popular at all.[Clarification for kids: I have said SMS exchange keeps on failing between these two networks, I do not mean to say that it fails all the time, it may work successfully many times, but chances of success are less then 50%]
Low STD Rates
Please make one note that Low STD rates are only from reliance-to-reliance. And for other STD calls you will not only need to pay Reliance’s rent but also must pay landline charges as well. Dont have impression that if you will buy reliance’s cell so everyone will also buy and you will get cheaper STD calls. On an average STD calls will be cheaper only if reliance covers 70% of india with only Reliance India Mobile, and that will never happen. You can buy reliance, but you cant force all of your friends and relatives to buy reliance’s cells for you to have less STD call charges !!
Internet ??
CDMA technology has bandwidth of 2.5 mbps, that means the internet connection you will get will have speed of 2000 times faster then what you get in your usual dial up connection. But remember having this high speed of network wont do anything great unless reliance’s servers are million times powerful then other ISPs.
Also international bandwidth charges are very high compared to what reliance is going to offer so they can never offer you entire internet surfing. They have written RelWeb everywhere, please make sure that RelWeb is not internet, it will be only internet of reliance and reliance’s websites. They will go bankrupt in a year if they will give you 2.5mbps entire internet surfing for free or at very cheaper rates then what others are offereing.
Cracking news !!!
Reliance is going to charge for this internet later on, you dont have to pay anything extra for internet but you will have to pay for the badwidth used, however after taking good money, reliance will give some bandwidth free but anyway it will be included in rent.
Cellphone
Have anyone thought of what will happen if
1) Your cell will have some problem, like some malfunctioning then? where you will run? cost of repair etc?
2) If You will loose your cellphone, inevitably you will have to pay 10000 Rs because no choice of cheaper cellphones are available to you. Cellphone’s cost they say is 10000 Rs because it has WAP, JAVA MIDP enabled, but what if you dont require it still you have to buy it?? and pay extra for these facilities that you will not use.
3) Reliablity and Durability of cellphones are still unknown.
4) Cellphone’s extra accessories to connect to computer and use internet are not supplied with cellphone, you will need to buy these accessories.
5) You will be stuck with only white colored cellphone!! no extra color models, no extra designs, stick to only one for 3 years. Note cellphone is still property of RIM for 3 years, read the manual and other documents you got. I dont know but does this mean that you are not true owner of cell and you may not sell it?
Corruption
As I indicated in my previous articles, they must have done something fishy so that TRAI increases Tariff and people are forced to buy their cells. This is really a bad and unethical. Along with the points I outlined above, everyone knows that reliance has no way to survive when there is lots of competition in cellular services. They have huge money and our TRAI etc government departments have huge mouth. Along with dirty politics and riots, corporate level corruption is sucking middle class indian’s blood. May god help them.
Thanks.
-Akash Kava