Tag Archives: airtel 2g

Airtel EDGE went down again today

I thought it was a coverage problem at my place but looking at Twitter and other places, I can safely say that airtel EDGE went down in some parts of Delhi NCR region.

I am not sure if it is back now because my phone is currently connected to the web through Wi-Fi. But this is the second time in the last couple of months that I have noticed airtel network disappearing on me.

Mobile number portability is an option with me. Vodafone might be an option worth considering once I have spent 6 months on my current connection.

The Say No To airtel Campaign

It was launched primary to protest against the high 3G prices being charged by airtel. But in the recent days, it has included the very painful Fair Usage Policy and the falling standards of airtel customer support.

I cannot stop myself from supporting this campaign largely because airtel continues to defend fair usage policy claiming that their limits are already pretty generous. Their best plan from what I saw was 1800 rupees for 4mbps till 50GB and 256kbps afterwards! They do offer a plan with 16mbps speeds with 100GB data transfer but for 5000 rupees. This has gone totally insane. They have shown pretty much no interest in my recommendations related to prepaid broadband plans with reasonable pricing per GB of consumption.

As for the 3G, it is still not available in Gurgaon and large part of country. At their current tariffs, I am unlikely to switch to it. I mean their 2G services are pretty slow but it does work out fine at 100 bucks for 2GB. It is painful to try browsing at these speeds but at least I have some form of internet connectivity on the move. 3G would mean keeping an eye on every single piece of data transfer to stay in the limits. Not something I am keen on.

In any case, if you are an airtel customer, it is worth keeping an eye on the following Twitter accounts: @saynotoairtel and @airtel_absence.

airtel has got a new mobile customer!

I have to admit that airtel was the first mobile service I used. That was long time ago in Chandigarh.

Since then I have tried a lot other options including Hutch, Tata Indicom and even Aircel.

Now, I am back to airtel. And it took a lot of effort on my part. I have waited for Mobile Number Portability forever… it still has not arrived. airtel stores in my regions turned out to be awful. They are out of prepaid sim cards pretty much all the time. I had to get airtel customer to do something about it.

And when I went to the airtel store to get the sim card recharged, they were incidentally out of prepaid recharge (amazing! Huh?). Anyways… I am now using an airtel prepaid number with their pretty nice data package that costs 100 bucks for 2GB. And it works on roaming!

Data on roaming was the primary reason for my switch to airtel this time around. Of course, they are one of the four options I have here in Gurgaon for 3G services whenever they are launched. But I am not very optimistic about that. I can only hope that their existing 2G plan would remain available and the company would not temper with its speeds in the future.

Tata DOCOMO is being accused by a lot of folks that they have made their 2G speeds so slow now that they have launched 3G.