Tata Indicom Photon+

From may 2011 I am a customer of TATA photon plus. I am also a regular visitor of mouthshut.com. I just found this time to be appropriate with my 2 to 3 months experience with this product to write a review of the device.

PROS:

1. OF COURSE! MOBILITY. you can take it anywhere, use it on the move.

   
   




2. COMPACT DESIGN. Can easily fit in your pocket. Also it has a micro SD card slot. You can use your mobile storage card in combination with this device as a replacement of pen drive.

   
   




3. SELF INSTALLATION. It is hassle free. just plug in and relax. It will self extract and install it’s drivers. What you have to do is just a few mouse button clicks.

   
   

CONS:

1. DOWNLOAD SPEED. Forget what was told in the advertisement. I will strongly recommend you talk with the sales person with both of your ears closed. What he will tell you, will never be realized. REMEMBER, there is no domestic connection in India(including the much hyped 3G) that can give you over 1 mbps. Everyone will boast you that they will give UP TO 3.1 mbps, UP TO 7.2 mbps, UPTO 27.1 mbps etc. what you will never get! With tata photon you will get a decent speed of 170 to 250 kbps if you have good signal strength in that area. In extremely good condition you will get up to 700 kbps download speed.

I think a download speed of 100 kbps more than enough in home usage. With this in mind, it is a good device; but for speed mongers, strictly no no.

1. CUSTOMER CARE. There is no customer care. In fact there is "CUSTOMER? DON’T CARE!". They all exist till you buy the device. after you buy they will vanish from earth. Only the bill department exists. they will update you on your bill, bill amount, bill payment etc.

REALLY bad news for prepaid users! in case of any problem they cannot call anywhere. if they call repeatedly, they will not pick up the phone or worse - they will block your number from calling. At least postpaid users have that advantage of talking to TATA photon call center once in a month when the bill is generated.

1. THE DEVICE. Overall performance of the Huawei device is good. If you use it with a micro SD card as if it is a pen drive, be cautious! copying or pasting any large file can take a lot of time(say for about 15 min to 28 minutes). If you permanently plug the device in with your computer or laptop(which is recommended to prevent general wear and tear of the USB port) your computer will take longer to boot. It significantly slows down your system at times especially if you are using windows XP. sometimes the device restricts some popular web sites like google or yahoo. At that time you can not log into even in yahoo mail. Thank god! This situation never lasts for more than 15 mins or usually resolves after a reboot.

   
   




2. SIGNAL STRENGTH. When the device opens in a dialog box there is an antenna icon where the signal strength is visible. if it is more than 70% you can connect internet, if more than 30% you can connect with a difficulty(chat applications have significant difficulties with it) if you have less than 30% you might not be able to connect at all to internet.

   
   

REMEMBER, for all CDMA devices like this one, signal strength is of utmost importance. Before buying I would suggest to call one of the sales person at your home to check signal strength. The coverage varies widely in different areas. if you do not have good signal at your place, forget buying it.

1. COST. The device price is in the higher end, so do the billings. any unlimited plan will cost you around Rs. 900 to 1000 per month in both prepay or postpay. Of course, it will! It is a wireless freedom. So it will extract from you some extra bucks!

if you plan to buy one, consider about your options.

First ask to yourself -(1) how many Gbs do I need in a month?(2) how much bandwidth/speed I need? (3) whether I need any portability/mobility?

then consult the brochure of TATA photon and web site and choose.(Do not listen to sales person, he will surely misguide you. All he needs is to sell you the device with a plan as high as he can push you into.)

i have bought the device at Rs. 1799 with a postpaid plan of Rs. 950(exclusive tax) with 5 Gb(up to 3.1 mbps)+ unlimited(up to 155 kbps) and using this device so far. I have made some alterations to Huawei device EC 152 driver to make it suitable to use with a CISCO VPN and stabilize its speed.

i am using this with no problem; but if any problem arise, I have to throw away it because there is no customer care.

November 23, 2011

Hi All,

further update on TATA photon+. Until two weeks ago I did not have any connection problem issue. But recently, I found that my device is frequently getting disconnected or it is showing to be connected but I can not open any web page. sometimes connection speed is dropping to such a low level that I could not even connect Yahoo messenger or G Talk.

I mailed the customer care on this issue and TO MY SURPRISE they called me back and assured me a resolution within 1 week. TATA technical person visited my home and solved the problem. My Huawei modem speed was reduced. It can be adjusted through clicking START MENU > RUN > SERVICES.MSC and adjusting the modem speed to highest settings. This Huawei device automatically installs and updates its drivers time to time, and at that time with new updates the speed instead of increasing - reduces. The tata tech-pers unofficially told me to turn off automatic driver updates of the device and enjoy high bandwidth and high speed with the old driver that comes with the modem with the settings in my computer made by him.(I don’t know whether it is any type of marketing strategy of TATA company to reduce the connection speed of existing customers, so that they are compelled to switch over to a more expensive and so called speedy connection offered by them.)

Now, my connection speed is as it was at the time of new connection and I have no issues so far with Customer Care. I think TATA is now starting to worry about it’s "worse customer care" reputation. I am satisfied with their present service - do not know about the future though; but hopefully the service will improve more over time. WELL DONE TATA PHOTON.

CONCLUSION

march 1, 2012

Hi all,

all my praising to TATA has gone in vein. for the last two months the speed is only 3 to 5 kbps sometimes 700 bps. a 700 kb file took 25 mins to download and instead of 4 dockets and 11 phone calls customer care is not doing anything. They have so called "unlimited connection" in which you will get a speed of 33 to 20 kbps till the download limit. After that you will not be able to connect the internet at all because of extremely low speed. So, there is nothing to say that it is "unlimited."

I think TATA is in a hurry to market its new product TATA photon max(6.2 Mbps) so they are slowing down existing TATA photon plus customers compelling them to switch over to photon max at higher costs. But I think this is a nasty trick.

i am updating this review using Aircel GPRS(pocket internet) using my mobile as modem. this connection is slow but now it seems far better than photon. This is my last update as I am disconnecting photon connection. I have already applied for BSNL broadband.

SHAME TATA PHOTON! YOU CAN NOT RETAIN A CUSTOMER - EVEN FOR A FULL YEAR.