Not having the leisure of your own fixed home means that one cannot afford a fixed landline or broadband internet. As soon as wireless internet(via GSM) hit the market around 2006, I subscribed to it and began surfing it on my laptop. Needless to say, the connectivity was way to slow. This was due to a host of reasons such as poor connectivity in the area I lived and GSM jammers operating around my place. I soon switched to Tata Indicom CDMA Dongle.
CDMA Dongle fared better and wasn’t affected by the Jammers. Also it provided connectivity all along the various train routes and also in smaller towns. I used it very well to surf internet for over a year. But over a period of time it occurred to me that Tata was going the Reliance way and charging way more than would be justifiable. Also they often missed out on providing the usage details thus keeping the customer in dark. I defaulted on payment in the last month and let them deduct it from my Deposit. Of course, I ended up paying a little less this way.
Then came the period when I was settled in a place for while and hence could afford Broadband. Asianet broadband served well despite the relatively steep pricing.
It was time to get back to my Tata Dongle as I switched towns around end 2008. When I visited the Tata Indicom showroom they asked me to upgrade my Dongle by landing it in their Worli showroom as they said that there was a upgrade in the technology. I did the necessary ‘upgrade’ for Rs 200/- and tried to log in using a new number I purchased in Mumbai. To my dismay, the very Tata Indicom dongle that performed to my satisfaction earlier had come a few notches down and refused to do anything substantial. I threw in the towel and marched back to the showroom for an explanation. The Tata representatives offered lame excuses and said that it was the best possible due to changes in technology. I regretted having spent the money on ‘upgrade’ and recharge.
Tata Photon Plus had just been introduced in the market and I fell for Tata once again as the only alternative was Reliance with which I have had a even more bitter experience. Tata did not offer any exchange offer(for the old GSM dongle) and hence my Old GSM dongle lies uselessly with me.
I purchased the Tata Photon plus for Rs 2100/- and was offered an initial recharge of 5 GB for only Rs 750/- the usually tariffs being way higher. I went for this as it meant good amount of free usage for 3 months. I could only exhaust about 3 GB in the stipulated period and I realised much to my relief that Tata was benevolent enough to not terminate my services after the stipulated period of 3 months and hence I kept using the remaining 2GB for another 2 months odd before it was eventually terminated.
Now was I at the truly business end of the plan as I had to make monthly recharges. I purchased my first recharge of 650MB for Rs 500 which had to be exhausted in a month. Despite my sparing usage, I exhausted it in about 20 days and had to recharge again. Soon, I realised that Tata had, by good marketing, got me into spending about Rs 700/- for a month of internet usage that too sparingly. Also I had no option of using this dongle for any other service provider, so I in effect was in a bad marriage. It began to gnaw into me and my ill will for Tata Indicom raised its head again.
In order to extricate myself from this situation, I went through all the plans that Tata provided. I then chose a plan that suited me better as it offered me 8GB of usage over 6 months for Rs 2000/-. Now I could afford to be less sparing and also use about 1.25 GB a month for about Rs 340/-(Rs 2000/6). Though it meant letting go Rupees 2000 at one go, I decided to go for it.
This plan proved incredibly useful as I could now use more data and also got it cheaper than my previous plan. From sparing usage earlier, I began to video chat and surf extensively now. My per day usage hovered around 100MB data. So in worst case scenario I would exhaust my plan in 80 days or about 3 months thus paying about Rs 666/- per month. But this wasn’t the case as I am not online every day and hence my data lasted almost 6 months thus reducing the per month cost.
When I recharged the Rs 2000/- package for the second time, I was also given an offer of 2GB extra data for online recharge. Also, whatever data I hadn’t exhausted got carried forward. This proved to be a bonanza to me as I am able to surf even more sites now and also download small videos.
Thus Tata Photon plus has been a boon for me as I by virtue of having the freedom to be online all the time have also benefitted from e-commerce thus making my Internet facility a true force-multiplier.
There are still some shortcomings that need to be addressed by Tata such as connectivity in limited number of cities. This wasn’t the case with the CDMA dongle which gave connectivity though out the country.