MERRY CHRISTMAS

Park Street, Kolkata in X-Mas days, 2014

Tata Docomo WiFi (Public, Free for 20 Minutes) Review

Tata Docomo (earlier Tata Indicom Broadband) is offering free public wifi for sometime across the country. However initially the service was limited to certain places of Kolkata like in airport, Park Street area and Saltlake area with many white spots (=no coverage zone). And that time it was not free and plans were too costly for customers, as 2G was cheap.

When I came to know about free public wifi hotspots, I searched a lot of places over Kolkata to get it one. But like Kolkata's late entry into everything, free public wifi hotspots (free is upto a certain time) came late in Kolkata.

Anyway scenario has been changed, now many service providers are offerring free public wifi for certain period of time. I have tested Tata Docomo Wifi at Diamond Plaza Mall, Nagerbazar, Kolkata.

Aircel 3G - Whopping 1.38 MB/s

Aircel is offering HSPA+ services in Kolkata and it's blazing fast. 

On torrent download I was getting 1.38 MegaBytes per second, that's equal to 11.04 Mbit/sec

Reliance Jio Infocomm - Updates in September-October-November 2014

Last month was pretty busy for Reliance Jio, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries.

New Appointments:

• Anupama Ahluwalia joined R-Jio as senior vice president. Earlier she was VP-Marketing at Coca Cola (India & South West Asia).
• Former Deutsche Telekom executive Rainer Deutschmann joined as new Chief Products and Innovation officer at Jio. He will take care of formulating the venture’s go to market strategy while overseeing various key software, content and mobile Internet elements of the venture.

Reliance Jio Joined COAI for Cracking Indus deal?

In between Reliance Jio Infocomm, the telecom arm of Reliance Industries had inked another tower sharing deal with world's largest tower company - Indus Towers, which is a joint initiative between Bharti Airtel's tower arm Bharti Infratel, Vodafone India and Idea Cellular's parent company Aditya Birla Group.

This is the first time Jio collaborates with Aditya Birla Group's telecom firm by any means. Earlier Jio made two deals with Bharti Airtel for sharing each other's infrastructure and using to access bandwidth

Reliance CDMA Netconnect+ Tariff [September 2014] - Get 24 GB for Rs 999

Reliance has revised its Netconnect+ offerings. Now enjoy 24GB for Rs 999 on prepaid!

Reliance Netconnect+ device price: Rs 799
Bandwidth: Downlink upto 3.1 Mbit/s and uplink upto 1.8Mbit/s

Reliance has wide CDMA coverage as well as EVDO rev A coverage. But at the same time MTS India and Tata Docomo Photon has launched next gen EVDO technology - EVDO Rev B phase II and phase I respectively. MTS currently offers upto 9.8 Mbit/s download speed, while Tata Docomo Photon offers upto 6.2Mbit/s.

Happy Teachers' Day - Beautiful Flipkart Newsletter

Today is 5th September, and it's Teachers' Day in India.

Flipkart sent a beautiful newsletter which just dropped into my inbox.
Check this out:

It's Different Music & I like it #1

These days I am too busy, and once I get back to home it's music hunt. Thanks to Alliance's true unlimited broadband at home I check out different types of music over internet. I just avoided Youtube, because it's uncool if someone do like only audio. Soundcloud is the option for them.

Disclaimer: If you don't like Indian music, stay away !!

Here is the list where I found some of best music.
Note that this list contains mostly cover maker singers !

Arjun - YT

Future of Mobile Virtual Players is Bright in India, Provided Regulations at Place

In my last article I explained how Indian ventures via 'PSEUDO-MVNO' route failed to sustain. But in the changed situation in the telecom sector, which includes less competition, exit of most new operators, power to incumbents, standardized tariff regime, expansion of 3G coverage & hence more uptake, upcoming 4G based mobile broadband, agressive growth of mobile internet in urban areas, interest in mobile internet in rural areas, gross difference between rural & urban teledensity and establishment of a new government believing in corporate work culture; the market can find a sustainable & profitable niché for mobile virtural network operators.

There are few steps are needed to boost this never-properly-explored segment of Indian telecom.

A Proper Rules & Regulations for MVNO:

Government of India is yet come up with a proper policy for MVNO. Once it comes, several companies from domestic & overseas market may be interested to enter in India via MVNO. But nobody knows when the final outcome would come in.

MVNO in India #1: 'Not Truly' MVNO Failed in Most Cases

Though MVNO is not legally approved in India, there are several trials of MVNO-like or Pesudo-MVNO operations. World’s one of the most popular MVNO, UK-based Virgin Mobile tied up with Tata Docomo, the telecom arm of legendary Tata Group. Virgin Mobile was selling CDMA & GSM voice and CDMA data over dongles; concentrates on GSM only now – offers voice & 2G internet.

Tata Docomo has another tie up with Future Group – Talk24 Mobile (GSM). It is more like a royalty program for Future’s retail customers. We can’t say it’s flop as no confirmed data available.

Reliance Jio Would Offer Internet via 4G/LTE, WiFi and FTTx; Joins COAI

Jio would offer data in three ways - via 4G (LTE-TDD on 2300MHz & LTE-FDD on 1800MHz), WiFi and FTTx.

At this stage Jio will offer 4G mobile broadband using lte-tdd technology over 2.3Ghz band. This band can be good for high-density population areas like in metros, but in rural and semi-urban areas it can't provide proper coverage without enough no of towers. That's why launch of 4G services will be in metros and large cities at first phase.

Virgin GSM (2G/EDGE) Speedtest #2

Continuing from the last post...

This post adds more graphs and Speedtest results from Ookla.

Unboxing MBlaze Power WiFi – Pretty Impressive on First Look

Recently MTS India, country’s pure-play CDMA mobile and data services provider has launched a very innovative product – MBlaze 3GPlus WiFi Router Power bank.

The device from MTS India is actually Lava MF800 and it’s definitely a beast in a small package – includes 5200mAh power bank for your smartphones or tablets and usual WiFi router which is powered by MTS’ 3GPlus network which supports upto 9.8Mbit/s downlink.

List of Indian Loyality Programs by Loylty Rewardz

Loylty Rewardz has several loyality programs with several banks in India. Here goes the list.

State Bank of India - FreedomRewardz
Punjab National Bank - PNB Rewardz
HDFC - HDFC Infinia & HDFC Regalia
Bank of India - BOI Star Rewardz
Central Bank of India - Anmol Rewardz
Karur Vysya Bank – Anmol Rewardz
IndusInd Bank - WorldMiles
Federal Bank - Utsav Rewards
Union Bank of India - UnionRewardz


Note that I am doing some research on loyality programs in India. This post is a part of it.

Virgin GSM 2G Internet Turns Better

In a small update, I would like to say that after 3G goes vial or more mass & pocket friendly, the performance of 2G internet services from 2G-only operators turn better.

I am using Virgin Mobile GSM for a long time, this operator actually uses Tata Docomo's GSM network.

Check out the speed:

RIP, Orkut

People want change, they like it sometimes, sometimes don't. Like they did not like Microsoft's push to adopt MetroUI on desktop users.

Orkut is dead, as decided by Google. Like many unsuccessful ventures Google will kill Orkut - the undesputable king of social networking during 2006-2009. I count this timeframe 'coz I was active that time over it.

There are many memories over it - some are too personal to share. BSNL Broadband Commumity, Bangla Khisti Community, Download Community, my hype over Rapidshare downloads via (E)-lephant, lots of chat history and scraps will stay with orkut.

Whatever we moved to facebook, twitter, Google+ and others. WhatsApp was dropped to us in a perfect time when mobile revolution began.

Anyway rest in peace, Orkut!

image credit: internet

Happy - Pharrell Williams

While I am busy with my regular routine, enjoy this Happy video !!

Android App Stores [List]

Here goes the long list of App stores available for Android:

Concentrating More on 4G & Tech Trends

This year 2014 turned to be a hectic from the beginning, hence no post on my own blog and very few posts on Telecomtalk.

However as I am getting busy with my work schedule (which actually pays me) I have planned a way-out to balance my interest and work. For some time I don't write on regular topics, rather 4G and other tech trends are my attraction on telecom space.

Photography remains one of the coolest thing in my life. I keep snapping pictures as I wander across Kolkata's streets during night. Check out on Viewbug

Get an inside on India's WiFi progess - Read it on Telecomtalk

Happy reading. :)

2014 Spectrum Auction : 900 & 1800 MHz Winners