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.


While I was roaming across the mall, there were 60+ Wifi networks (few open, but either connected but no internet or not connected after several efforts; some are from Bravia TV, MTS ZTE dongles, Wifi Hotspots from individual's mobile phones and different stores).

On the ground floor, at KFC I found Tata Docomo WiFi is present and connecting to it is very fast.

After connecting to it, when you try to open any page it will redirect to log in page (here old Tata Indicom broadband logo is present). Here you give your mobile no, you will receive a username & password as SMS shortly and use them log on and enjoy the free ride for 20 minutes.

Turn on WiFi on your device, and look for Tata Docomo Wifi,

connect to it. 

try to open any page, it will redirect to this initial page.

Type your mobile no. there, and you will get a SMS from them 

Log in with this Serial No and PIN at the next page.

Log in page, as previously seen:

Voila, you got connected to internet.

On my experience, the service was smooth, browsing speed is very nice, did not go for a torrent download as free wifi is never meant for it.

TEST DETAILS:
Location: Diamond Plaza Mall, Nagerbazar, Kolkata
Network: Tata Docomo Wifi
Device I used: Gionee Dream D1
Max. Download Speed: 102KB/s (=816kbps) via Dolphin Browser

Free usage time: 20 minutes
Avg Download Speed: 60-85kBps through out the session.

Tata Docomo Wifi plans: 
In case you are interested to use more than 20 minutes, you have to buy. Check out the plans:

Rs 100/50 plans  | Heavy Plans | Plans for Those are on International Roaming (last link accesible over Tata Docomo Wifi only.)  The shorter plans Rs 100 and 50 gives Rs 89 and Rs 45 usage value but there is no mention of tariff plan. :O However check the tariff here. (Re1/min or more.)

I used Tata Docomo WiFi is available in KFC, Esplanade and KFC, Mani Square Mall, EM Bypass too.

HOTSPOT LOCATOR - link

Today I used it at Mani Square, speed was faster - max 157kBps and avg was 80-120kBps. Check it:

Update on 16th February, 2016: Tata Docomo WiFi is present on Kolkata Airport - free for 30 minutes. At the same time Reliance Jio's free WiFi service Jionet is also available there, that means you can access free WiFi anytime without any limits on Jionet. Only condition is you need to re-log in after 30 minutes.

However in Bengaluru Airport Tata Docomo offers 45 minutes of free usage and it's the solo WiFi provider there. Here I found that speed is around 100-180kBps most of the time.

The plans are now like that:  

 Rs 20 - 200 MB - 1 day

 Rs 50 - 500 MB - 3 days 

 Rs 100 - 1GB - 15 days 

 Rs 200 - 2.5GB - 30 days

 Rs 500 - 7 GB -  90 days

 Rs 10,000 - 150 GB - 360 days