On 14/07/11 9:09 AM, Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) wrote:
Hi, I was thinking of getting one of those pre-paid MTNL 3G SIMs to use
for 'net access when on the road or out on work. Is there any company
which is giving a better deal? Pre-paid is a must: my mobile 'net
requirement is sporadic, and I don't want to have to keep paying the
telco every month regardless of whether I use the service or not.
On a related note, anyone suggest an el cheapo mobile phone with 3G,
Bluetooth and decent battery life that one can use as a modem with
Linux? My Nokia 5800 does all that, but (a) it's not el cheapo, (b) I'm
already using it with Vodafone and (c) its battery life, while adequate
for talk, isn't too good with both BT and 3G on.
Regards,
-- Raj
Hi,
So I have tried almost all the 3G providers before settling to Reliance.
Here are my observations:
(All the speeds are for my home (1st floor, open area), your speeds will
vary, I'll recommend to go with the one whose tower is nearest to your
house)
(All tests under prepaid, although it shouldn't matter)
1) Airtel: Very unreliable 3G billing. I don't understand how they
charged me for 4,800 MB of data usage in 1 and half day. :( (dropped it
then and there)
Goods: Nice coverage, low connection drops.
Bads: No good plans (infact the worst).
Speed (on 7.2 Mbps beetle data card): approx 2.4 (as reported by speedtest)
2) Vodafone: I liked vodafone guys from always, but not with 3G.
Goods: Nothing special.
Bads: bad speed (1.2Mbps), connection drops after every 20 mins or so,
costliest.
3) MTNL: I was happy to find 1650 unlimited plan in MTNL, but when I
tested it, it was awful.
Good: Has unlimited plan (750/- if you pay 6 month upfront), cheapest.
Bads: Most of the time I can't connect or can't see HSPA, network is
HSPA only, not HSDPA thereby a max rated speed of 3.6Mbps.
Speed: less than 1Mbps most of the time and sometimes worse.
4) Reliance: The most stable of what I've seen till now.
Good: Almost 0 connection drop (atleast my locality, most of the time
connection made in the morning lasts till I shut down the PC at night),
Best download speed seen among all. I usually see download speed going
beyond 600Kbps via browser (=4.8 Mbps).
Bads: No unlimited plan.
Speed: Most of the time its between 3-3.5 Mbps on speedtest.net
My suggestion:
I think there are lot of options to choose from, but go for the one
which has the best coverage at your home, outside all are same..
Most of the Android phones has wifi tethering, but it sounds dirty. Get
a data card from nehru place for 1800 bucks. It'll be lot more convenient.
Btw, using internet from a 3G phone and bridging it via bluetooth will
almost waste the experience because channel bandwidth is 128KBps in most
of the cell phones (bluethooth v 1.2).
Tx
--
Shamail Tayyab
_______________________________________________
Ilugd mailing list
Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org
http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
