Mobile internet is NOT fun
I had 3G for a long time on my phone but the moment I reach home and connect my phone to home Wi-Fi (2Mbps broadband), I feel much more relaxed and browsing/social networking on my phone feels snappier. Technically, 3G is supposed to have max speed of 3.1Mbps and that is 50% more bandwidth than what my home broadband provides. But still, for me, the good old home broadband gives more fun than the 3G network on my phone. “Mobile internet is fun”. This is what Vodafone says for promoting 3G. About a month ago, there was a contest at a blogging site. It was a contest sponsored by Vodafone India and the requirement was simple. Tell why ‘Internet is fun on mobile’ and the prizes were mouthwatering. I thought I should try my luck but then I had a question. Is it really fun? After finding the answer to that question, I decided not to contest and instead penned this article. Note: This post is from a Bangalorean’s point of view. Plans and pricing (Vodafone’s greed) One of the most Idiotic data plans that I have ever seen. Have a look at this: 
As you can see from the plans from other service providers, users get wide rang of options from 1 day plans to full month unlimited plans with limits upto 10GB. Aircel’s 7 day plan with 200MB data limit and 37/- is much more better than Vodafone’s 200MB 30 day plan for 100/-. How does this help? For those who are highly inconsistent but well knowledged on how much they will use the coming month, having a wide range of plans really helps. Lets say that the next month, I am traveling to a different city without access to my faithful and ever consistent home Wi-Fi, I will need a plan where I have higher data limit. So, I go with these 10GB plans (given the heavy usage that I might have, be it watching movies or internet radio or viewing and uploading photos or getting tonnes of email). This way, I would not have to worry about reaching the data limt as 10GB is pretty good for a month. The month after the trip, if I am going to be on a minimal 3G data usage (lets say office and home Wi-Fi), I would rather pick one of the cheaper plans. Take a different person, sometone who never used internet on a mobile phone and now that he is planning to go on a weekly trip to a hill station, he has borrowed his friend’s camera phone and is looking for a plan that lets him stay connected to his friends for a week and lets him upload photos and tiny videos. This is where plans like Aircel’s 7 day/200MB/37 rupee are highly useful. With Vodafone, you do not have this flexibility and you will never be free to watch and do whatever you want (keep heavy movie download out of the equation please), without having contant fear of crossing the limit. Some might say that Vodafone gives higher data limits with USB dongles. Well, I also use MTS MBlaze postpaid connection. Currently, am paying 899/- for 12GB plan and guess what I have to pay to get 12GB if I choose Vodafone Mobile Broadband dongle? Vodafone’s 30 day plans maxes out at 10GB limit and you have to pay 1250/- for 10GB. Which means you get 2GB less and you pay 351 rupees more. Is it worth the extra cash? Well, I have tested these in various locations and my MTS gives more speed and is far more stable than Airtel and Vodafone 3G networks. My MTS MBlaze touches 3Mbps speed in some localities and consistently gives 1Mbps+ speeds. Network (consistently inconsistent) Me being on Vodafone network and wife on Idea network reminds me of this ad: While my wife enjoys clear audio quality and very good data connectivity on her Idea network, my Vodafone’s network keeps greeting me every day with ‘connection error’ and sudden drop in connection to internet . Only thing that I haven’t done yet is scream out loud ‘Where the hell is that pug?’. On a recent trip to a hill station, my wife had excellent network coverage for most part of the trip (except at places surrounded by dense hills where getting a network is impossible, whichever the provider is) while mine was below average and in most areas, I couldn’t get proper network. No, my mobile is not the reason for this network issues as me and my wife exchange our phones regularly. Due to these issues, I had to wait to reach my hotel room or to a place that has very good network to post that photo that I eagerly wanted to share with the world and to respond to comments and tweets/FB posts. I don’t think I can call this as fun. The network coverage of 3G network in a concert too. Be it Vodafone or TATA Docomo or Airtel, the network coverage across the country is far from being consistent and wide. The farther you move from cities and metros, the weaker it is. Even though you see 3G indicator on your phone, one cannot guarantee consistent 3G speeds and stable data connectivity. Well, when one cannot get stable and consistent network across a city, how can we expect network while moving away from city. Third problem is one network provider using other’s network to provide 3G services to their users. In my case, Vodafone is using Airtel’s 3G network for providing 3G services to its users in Karnataka, I had to ‘manually’ set network to Airtel’s 3G and I often end up switching between ‘automatic’ and ‘airtel’ as there are still many areas where 3G network is highly inconsistent and I had to switch back to Vodafone’s 2G network. One can say that I need to set the phone in ‘Dual’ mode so that the phone switches between 3G and 2G but the switching used to happen too often (whenever a drop in signal happens) and I used to end up losing the call or internet). The option of ‘manual’ n/w selection was suggested by Vodafone ccare and thanks to them, It was absolutely headache. If I am right, Aircel and Idea uses Airtel’s 3G network so if you are planning to go for 3G, you either go for Airtel’s connection or stick to good old 2G! We dont care about existing users Any brand cashes in lot of money from early adopters as the product price is set much higher than the intended price to recover development/setup costs but shooing early adopters is never a good thing to do. Can you imagine paying 425/- for same amount of data limit for which I have to pay 125 to 150 rupees to other service providers? About a month ago, I saw the new Vodafone’s 3G plans and I immediately called the customer care asking to upgrade my plan. To be specific, I was paying some 425/- for 500MB of data and the new plan was 375/- for 1GB of data and the response was “sir, the new plans are for new customers. Since you are existing 3G customer, these new plans are not applicable for you”. 5 minutes later, I ended up having my 3G connection disabled and moved to 2G plan. Fun in bits and pieces When the speed of the 3G network is close to the promised speed, it is indeed fun. Sites open at lightning speed, videos load in an instant, video calling is smooth, one can listen to internet radio, get social network updates at a concistent pace, download that just released app and quickly share the review with the world. But the problem is that this fun comes in bits and pieces. It is nearly impossible to get this consistent speeds to have fun. Being a blogger, getting a consistent 3G network would help me a lot which is the reason why I went for 3G in first place but I was extremely disappointed and moved back to 2G. Atleast, now, I dont have any expectations on data speeds. I am more happy being on consistent and glitter-free 2G network. And as long as the service providers keep the 3G network inconsistent and narrow, mobile internet cannot be fun and I can’t carry a USB dongle and a laptop wherever I go to get slightly more 3G speeds. Period!
