Roaming Wireless Data Card In India: Need Suggestions
I am planning a short India trip at end of this month, and need some suggestions on a wireless data card so that I can be connected outside of metro areas. The situation: my family lives in Aligarh, about 125 kms from Delhi, and Internet access there is still a pain: no real broadband to speak of and even then it is flaky. I am thinking of getting a Reliance or Tata wireless data card in Delhi, and then use it as roaming in Aligarh, but some people have told me it may not work that way.
Wondering if any of our readers know about this, and/or any other suggestions on staying connected outside and even traveling within Delhi. Also, do any of these companies have a pre-paid data card, or would I have to get a contract/post-paid? And how easy or difficult is it to get one in a store?
Post in comments below, or e-mail me at rali AT paidcontent.org.
Hi Rafat,
When i went to India recently, I had both Reliance and TATA Indicom Data cards, both worked fine. I was able to use applications such as Skype, Yahoo Voice.
Rgds,
Krishna
You can also try Airtel's Data card. It is pretty good, except for the fact that it costs more than what Reliance charges.
Use any of the service providers, given the rocking scanario on the mobile penetration and infrastructure in the country, all of them will work in Aligarh .
Serivce is okay not great, will allow you to acess your e-mail, and do basic bit of surfing . You could do with some more speed …
Hey I also come from Aligarh. Thats my home town too :-)
Reliance works comfortable for the purpose. Also there are quite a few guys whom i can ask to let you login for free in their personal wifi in case you get stuck. (My home included).
So welcome back home !
Cheers
Rafat, the key thing is that there are no roaming charges on data cards. You buy a plan worth Rs 650 or Rs 1100 on Reliance which allows you to download x MB per month from anywhere in India. Your location is irrelevant.
I've been using the Reliance card in Delhi. Mumbai, Pune and some in-between places have been fairly pleased. While the speed isnt enough for delay-free Skype usage, it's more than enough for most applications.
Dear Rafat,
Reliance Datacard will work fine in Aligarh. Speed is quite ok. You can check mails, chat and browse sites easily.
I've noticed that Hutch is the most reliable -
I had booked a Reliance Net connect connection as I got a free offer with my HCL laptop.
The offer was for Rs.3750 for three months internet usage free with a download limit of 1
GB.
The strange thing was the next month I got a bill for Rs. 382 which was followed by
another bill of Rs. 2464.
Apparently the FREE OFFER WITH HCL AND HP AND OTHER OFFERS IS NOT FREE FOR THREE MONTHS.
THEY SEND YOU BILLS THE NEXT MONTH.When I escalated it to Reliance they said they would
look into it and have since never gotten back. According to my bill there is a fine print
that says its 1 GB download or 20 hours of internet surfing time (which is not specified
anywhere). That means if you cross the 20 hours you pay @ Rs0.50 per minute.
I urge anyone who has THE HP OR HCL OR COMPAQ LAPTOP TO NOT BUY THE DATACARD FREE OFFER
ITS JUST RELIANCE'S WAY OF CHEATING PEOPLE.
IF YOU ARE SO KEEN ON A DATACARD YOU MAY HAVE MINE (FREE OF COST IF U CAN HELP ME TAKE
THESE PEOPLE TO TASK FOR CHEATING CUSTOMERS. ITS WORTHLESS NOW GIVEN THE PILED UP BILLS)
Kunal
Data Card Number: 9323985362
I just spoke to the reliance & airtel regarding their data card speed, they said that the truth is you will not get more than 30kbps & 20-30 kbps from the resp cards. At least they were being frank. I wonder what speed the tata vdata card is? must be similar.
reliance also have a data card which is usb type plug in, which one can use in the laptop.
Laptops are coming with the new Express Card slots. Do the data card suppliers now give the data card which will fit in this slot, airtel & reliance do not have this new type of card, the airtel & reliance off said so this morning.
sat
Hi,
With reliance im getting max 110 kbps also past few days in the evening.I do google voice chat,browsing,text chat.But right now im in need to sell it off as im travelling abroad.
Reg,
Vidhya.S