Airtel 3G

Airtel 3G in Chennai – User experience, Price & What’s the catch?

Airtel 3GFinally ! Here we are with Airtel 3G in India. Now Airtel customers can have a go at real 3G speed. Sources suggest that the delay in rolling out 3G was due to hardware problems. It was provided by Ericsson. Now first things first. Let me get to the point. I had subscribed to Airtel’s 3G pack Rs.100 for 100 MB. This is to check out how good it is, did not want to pay a hefty sum at the first instance. It was pretty smooth upgrading..

After the upgrade I did see the much awaited 3G signal bar on my phone. Ok! now its testing time.

User experience

  • First I did a bit of browsing, boy ! it was pretty quick, web pages loaded in a jiffy. I really did not time it because it loaded really quick.
  • I loaded a YouTube Video, no buffering, watched the 4 min Video with no problems, it took around 6 MB of data usage
  • Made a Skype call for about 6 min, voice clarity was really good and data usage was around 4-5 MB
  • Tried Google Maps everything was so fast could not see the difference between computer and my phone, used it for about couple of minutes.
  • Did listen to an Online Radio for about 5 min took about 8 MB of data usage
  • Guess there is no need to say about Facebook or Twitter. It was good obviously.
  • Video Call – Not yet tested :(

Price – Do you get what you pay for ?

3G speed is fantastic, you have to really feel it to enjoy it. But currently in Airtel, 3G is available only in 3 places wiz. Bengaluru, Chennai, Coimbatore. ok ! Its not even there in all the metros? hmmm.

3G signal was not available in all parts of Chennai, often in many places it changed to 2G. Let alone all the places, even in my house when walking from one room to another sometimes its shows 2G. When it chaged from 3G to 2G there was lag in the application when it was loading data which often made me wonder if the application hanged.

Currently prices not low. 2G plans in Airtel is Rs.98 for 2GB and for Rs.100 its only 100MB in 3G.

Now you decide please, it’s quite a debate.

The Catch – There is always a catch right ?

If you have bought 3G connection and in places where 3G is not available (2G) and use any application that requires data connections (youtube, browse, chat etc) its changed with 3G!. Meaning if you have bought 100MB of 3G by paying Rs.100 like I did, suppose you used the connection for about 10MB using 2G, then it would reduce from the 100MB to 90 MB….That’s bad !

You cannot have 2G and 3G plans activated at the same point of time in your phone. You will pay 3G price for using 2G.

7 thoughts on “Airtel 3G in Chennai – User experience, Price & What’s the catch?”

  1. Airtel 3G is worst in their billing, as well as customer service. For jus less than 400mb they have charged 5700rs. I had launched complaint through mail(To get the written proof), for both customer care and Nodal Desk. no one has replied. i received only auto replies. And also they r accepting the issue on 3G, but, not at all giving mail reply. jus to escape from consumer court case fillings…

  2. airtel not providing the service as 3G.its worst from all the networks,even 2G is better from airtel 3G…….
    there is problem with airtel 3G.i hv talk to customer care but he said its problem here….can be solved immediately but not solved,yet…….

  3. People who use bsnl will never look back to other service provider in 3g as well as broadband or EVDO , its superb, and soo cheap 1mb just 30ps in BB, and unlimited only 499/month its great

  4. bsnl is simply the best and cheapest 3g service in Chennai, I don’t know other city, here even in 2g Sim , 2g tariff we are able to use 3g signal which is truly good,but not as speed as 3g but its enough for us rs 98 ,2gb/mth and in 3g mode the speed is good , bsnl is the best i suggest with my own experience.

  5. Per unit charges are 15 times higher than BSNL!! Airtel is still in the Nokia dumb phones era – with future smart phones and Android, video calling and youtube, BSNL would turn out to be much more cost effective.

    1. Agreed. BSNL is the cheapest 3G provider in India and most of my friends use BSNL for 3G services. Even I’m planning to use BSNL for 3G services and Airtel for voice calls.

    2. Agreed that BSNL is cheaper, that does not mean you can start cursing Nokia…
      PS: Android aint a smartphone, it is just a stupid phone, the user has to be smart enough to use it.

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