[TurboKat]

Originally Posted by sukhbirST

While I do agree with the views against bsnl, we must wait till 4G is launched in next few months. Never write them off, as they are still more reliable when working. Also remember they are far affordable for the common man. Must realise making calls and data usage are still 2 different things.

I find articles everywhere saying BSNL 4G is yet to be launched. In my hometown(Guwahati), I see H+ constantly on the status bar. But, whenever I'm at the university(Tezpur), the H+ symbol gets replaced with 4G(BSNL SIM in the 2nd slot). Speeds are also pretty decent, as I get around 10-11 MBPS during free times and 2-3 MBPS during peak times. These speeds are decent enough to watch most of the YouTube videos in high quality. Moreover, data packs are also cheap and coverage is much better when compared to my Vodafone sim(slot 1). Vodafone has better speeds in central areas. But it diminishes as I move towards the outskirts.

Attaching a screenshot of the same.

[xotiq]

Circa 2007, travel to US and tickets booked. Had to reactivate International Roaming. (Used to deactivate after each international travel). Off I went to the nearest BSNL Customer Care Center around 1100, submitted the written form for INTL roaming reactivation along with passport, visa, air ticket copies, and then the JTO wants to know why am I travelling, and why are youngsters going out of country, can't this work be done from India, with the suggestion to come after a week and some comments not apt to mention. Usually I am someone who does not get into an arguement, but not sure which angel/demon got into me that day, with the travel a week away. I went to the main door, and closed the grill gate, came back to the JTO and asked him to give it in writing that he is not willing to activate IR, without which I am not leaving the premises, and politely demanded him to call the cops and his seniors. Long story short, his collegaues persuaded him to quickly process the form and activate IR.

The above incident had some postive outcomes, as this led to good rapport with quite a few BSNL officers there, and couple of years later when I went to cancel BSNL postpaid, i was just brainwashed not to

Been with BSNL mobile postpaid from 2001 end or 2002 starting, (dont remember exact dates), and every time for a simple request- it has taken a personal visit to the nearest customer service center. Why am I with BSNL? Just for old times sake, sentimental, and god knows what other foolish reason!!

Coverage though is excellent in rural areas of south India, but please let us not take any G's beyond 3, ideally 2.

[TurboKat]

Originally Posted by xotiq

Long story short, his collegaues persuaded him to quickly process the form and activate IR.

The above incident had some postive outcomes, as this led to good rapport with quite a few BSNL officers there, and couple of years later when I went to cancel BSNL postpaid, i was just brainwashed not to

Coverage though is excellent in rural areas of south India, but please let us not take any G's beyond 3, ideally 2.

It's sad to hear about your unsatisfactory experience with BSNL. Here, at least in Guwahati, there are some officers who are well behaved. In fact, they urged my parents to get their SIMs converted from Postpaid to Prepaid, as there were better plans for prepaid users at much lower prices. Moreover, their network speeds are okay for my usage.

Attaching a screenshot below of a recent speed test.

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Everybody's mileage varies.

What did you finally decide?

My experience with Airtel on mobile is smooth for last 20 years. But it is a post paid taken with my previous corporate tie up and so it is still cheaper at just 200 bucks per month even this day. I got another Airtel post paid connection as well which I took and gave my wife at same cost 10 years ago. But their international packs are costly for post paid compared to pre paid. I never tried any other provider like BSNL or Jio. My dad has both Airtel (migrated from Aircel) and Jio (only for social media) pre paid and don't face much issues with both of them. Recently Airtel had outages couple of times and it become a pain with complete outage. But Airtel data connectivity is terrible in central Chennai areas like Anna Nagar due to congestion. It can't even open any app properly. Yesterday faced the same in Ciclo cafe, Uthandi ECR.

OT
My broadband experience with Airtel is not great. First I had it in 2008 time frame in Bangalore it waa good and when I switched home to another area, they refused transfer and I fought hard to get it. But the connection will often gets broken and I was told to get a higher plan like 3000 per month to avoid issues. Once it was down for 2 weeks and I refused to pay for the period it is not working and asked to close it with payment for working period. They refused and kept reminding. Finally they sent a lawyer notice and hilariously one lawyer called and threatened that I may never be able to travel abroad if they file a case. I challenged them to go ahead and told will file a case against him and Airtel. Then got a call from Nodal officer who decided to accept my version and waived the non working period fee and paid only the due to close the case. And after few years when I switched home, they asked me for another chance and this time experience was smooth till I moved out of Bangalore.

[meerkat]

Originally Posted by sukhbirST

... we must wait till 4G is launched in next few months.

This promise is now getting really tiresome, with no end in sight at least in my place!

Never write them off, as they are still more reliable when working.

Not in my experience, I'm sorry to say.

Also remember they are far affordable for the common man.

They have been increasing the tariff and cutting the benefits at each renewal. So much so, that they are now within touching distance of Jio in pricing, and a million miles behind in service quality, I'm afraid.

Jio is my only other choice, and I already have a number with them. So there is no point porting the BSNL number to them as well. It has gotten to a point that I've been seriously considering dropping this number for good. -- Only the headaches associated with discontinuing an old number is stopping me!

Must realise making calls and data usage are still 2 different things.

I know that, but do BSNL? They don't have any plans available for just making calls. They always package data along with the call facility. Yet, at least in my place (a well-populated tier 3 town), there has been no 3G data service for years! They are aware of that, but still keep on selling packages that include data too. A case of blatant fraud , if you ask me. They would not have any case if taken to court for deficiency in service.

Come to think of it, I've never had satisfactory continuous service of any kind in the past decade or more (landline, broadband or mobile)! So if they indeed die, it would be good riddance as far as I am concerned.
.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by thanixravindran

What did you finally decide?

No Jio sim yet. The project got forgotten for a while.

Usually, when we go to the hills, we are told that BSNL is the only service that works. When we went to Munnar last month, it was Jio that everybody was using. Airtel was not good, but one got signal in patches.

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

No Jio sim yet. The project got forgotten for a while.

Have you checked the VI coverage by swamping the older sim with newer one? Sometimes its the sim chip which bugs. I got my older sim replaced with new one and evaluating as a last resort before considering port to another service provider.

[meerkat]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Usually, when we go to the hills, we are told that BSNL is the only service that works. When we went to Munnar last month, it was Jio that everybody was using. Airtel was not good, but one got signal in patches.

In the hills of NE WB a few years back (before Jio), Airtel was the only service that was working. BSNL did show full-strength signal, but no calls (either incoming or outgoing) were possible for some reason!

My cell picked up some signals with weird unfamiliar names, possibly from China and/or some other bordering countries. :-).
.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

Have you checked the VI coverage by swamping the older sim with newer one?

That could be a good idea. But mostly, my Vi coverage is better (in my usual haunts) than Airtel. Getting a new phone has increased data rates substantially, and probably reception too.

[xotiq]

Originally Posted by meerkat

In the hills of NE WB a few years back (before Jio), Airtel was the only service that was working. BSNL did show full-strength signal, but no calls (either incoming or outgoing) were possible for some reason!

My cell picked up some signals with weird unfamiliar names, possibly from China and/or some other bordering countries. :-).
.

Couple of years back at Hotel Sonar Bangla, Taki - which is right on the border with Bangladesh, had the same experience of BSNL latching on to Bangladeshi providers even though BSNL had full signal strength. In fact couldn't make any calls. Beautiful place, great food which was enough diversion!

[IamNikhil]

From my travels across multiple states in the country, also in some really remote areas, have found that Jio & Airtel are here to stay. VI is almost non-existent the moment you step outside urban locations.

Been using an Airtel postpaid number since 2011 and have seen services improve to really great heights. That was also the reason why we chose Airtel Fiber in 2021 for internet services at home and am supremely happy with the same.

My other number is a Jio one; no complaints in that either; but with the overload on the network, services have definitely taken a hit in the last couple of years. It's not as seamless as it was in 2016 for instance, when it was launched. Jio Fiber however is an absolute nightmare.

My father has been using a VI number (formerly Hutch, then Vodafone, now VI), as his primary connection since 2003 and he is certain to not switch over till the time VI is extinct. His secondary connection is Jio, since VI is practically useless during travels.

[Light]

Originally Posted by IamNikhil

Been using an Airtel postpaid number since 2011 and have seen services improve to really great heights. That was also the reason why we chose Airtel Fiber in 2021 for internet services at home and am supremely happy with the same.

My other number is a Jio one; no complaints in that either; but with the overload on the network, services have definitely taken a hit in the last couple of years. It's not as seamless as it was in 2016 for instance, when it was launched. Jio Fiber however is an absolute nightmare.

Thanks for sharing your experience, Jio speeds have taken such a dramatic hit in my area I'm considering switching to Airtel even though it's a bit more expensive.

Forget all the talk about the duopoly situation being bad for consumers in the long run, it's already bad.

[BrakHorseBarhat]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Sheesh, Jio, all I want is a prepaid SIM, is it this difficult? Your service apparently sucks, right from the off.

Personally, I am very dissatisfied with Jio sims and internet services.

I have had a Jio sim for around 8 years at this point and recently also switched to the Jio fiber.

And I must say, while Jio is very economical, I absolutely cannot stand it sub-par services. I have stayed in multiple cities for long durations and my experience with Jio has been terrible, to say the least.

Here is a list of experiences with Jio at different places:-
1. Dwarka, New Delhi: Decent calls but sub-par internet speeds.
2. Outskirts of Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh: Horrible, very bad for calling, and internet speed was abysmal.
3. Outskirts of Dimapur, Nagaland: Again horrible for both calling and internet.
4. Dhuala Kuan, New Delhi: Subpar audio quality on calls and a lot more buffering than I'd expect in a major city. While it is understandable that I got bad service on the outskirts of Jabalpur and Dimapur, however, I expected it to be great in Delhi. Despite all this i had not moved to another provider because at the end of the day, most of the time i use Wi-Fi but that recently changed after I got Jio fiber around 1 and a half months ago and it has been very inconsistent. It often doesn't work whatsoever and even when it does, I face a lot of buffering when I try to consume content in HD or 4k. Furthermore, when someone is streaming anything on the TV it becomes useless on other devices. (unfortunately, we paid for the whole year and will have to live with it for now but i regret this a lot)

[Light]

I made the switch to VI from Jio.
Airtel didn't have home delivery of prepaid SIM in my area so I went with VI.

Pros:
- Home delivery and KYC within 24 hours.
- Much better network than Jio. Went from 0.5-3 Mbps with packet drops on Jio (even with 75% signal strength) to 12 Mbps stable on VI.
- Unused data rollover from weekdays on weekends
- 12-6 AM free data, was a surprise and welcome addition. My machines do their updates at 3AM and the size is quite large as they're running a rolling release distro (OpenSuse Slowroll)
- Lots of free data vouchers as a new customer
- Warm, fuzzy feeling of being a duopoly buster

Cons:
- Delivery guy put the alternate number for tele verification same as my own number which was being ported. Meant I couldn't activate the SIM myself and had to go to a VI store. Spoiled the whole home delivery thing after all.
- Slightly more expensive than Jio
- No 5G yet though the SIM is "5G ready"

[Oxy]

As a Jio prepaid customer, I am struggling to make sense of staying with them.

I mostly use my home WiFi for my internet needs so I don't need a plan with daily data. I used to recharge for about ₹1800 for the year which gave me unlimited calls and 24 GB of data for the year. There were top up data options with validity equivalent to your existing plan so this set up was perfect for me.

Now this ₹1800 yearly plan (even the tri-monthly one) has become a voice only plan (the data which used to come bundled with it has been removed). And also every data top up plan comes with limited validity of one month max.

Suddenly my phone expenses are going to be more than twice of what it used to be because now I will be forced to get one of those daily data limit recharges.

Is there any way out of this mess? My guess is that Airtel/Vodafone will also shamelessly follow suit if they haven't done so already.

Is BSNL easy to live with in Bangalore? How long does porting to BSNL take? Do they provide an e-sim option? Any real experiences with this would be really helpful.